Allies of President Donald Trump in the Republican Party, on Wall Street, and in corporate board rooms have asked the White House to put a stop to Elon Musk’s proclamations on Social Security, according to an NBC News report.
One Trump adviser told the broadcast network that Musk’s claims about entitlement programs had caused “outside concern.”
Musk, the leader of cost-cutting task force the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has spent weeks spreading falsehoods and unsubstantiated assertions about the benefits program, which he dubbed “the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time” in an interview with podcaster Joe Rogan last month.
In an interview with Fox Business on Mar. 10, Musk claimed there is $500 billion to $700 billion in fraudulent or wasteful spending on entitlements.
There is no evidence to support this claim and, as Forbes noted, “that would represent nearly a third of the $1.5 trillion Social Security paid out last year and approximately 20% of the amount spent on Social Security and Medicare combined.”
Trump, meanwhile, has repeatedly vowed not to touch Social Security, something the White House reiterated in a statement the day after Musk’s Fox appearance: “The Trump administration will not cut Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid benefits.”
A second White House official told NBC News they understood people could be concerned if they “hear something on the news that Elon Musk is saying, that we should do something with Social Security,” but claimed Musk’s opinions about Social Security don’t weigh on Trump’s pledge to protect the program.
An unidentified Republican congressperson told NBC they wished, rather than the DOGE leader attacking the credibility of entitlement programs, that the White House would make a measured case for reform: “The last thing we need to talk about is disparaging the system. It’s not a Ponzi scheme, it’s just an entitlement program that needs to be reformed.”
The congressperson said they were unaware of calls to the White House to reel in Musk’s public attacks on the popular retirement and disability program.
Musk’s DOGE—which has swung an unsparing axe at multiple government departments and agencies in pursuit of cuts that its leader has said could reach $2 trillion—has begun to train its attention on Social Security, announcing plans to lay off thousands of jobs at its administrator agency and shutter dozens of Social Security offices.
While White House officials told NBC the administration is steadfast in its commitment not to touch Social Security, “the reality is everything that Elon is doing when it comes to Social Security is just to improve it,” one official said.
A Republican lawmaker on Sunday broke ranks and called such claims dishonest.
“We’re not being honest when we look people in the eye and say we’re not going to touch it,” Senator John Curtis, a Republican from Utah, told Meet the Press. I think that’s one of the things that makes [the American people] not trust us, when we say something that they know is not true."
Curtis, who was referring to broader concerns about the program’s long-term solvency, said he plans to introduce “a change” to Social Security in the coming months.
