Elon Musk has praised the work of his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and said “legitimate recipients” of Social Security will receive “more money, not less” as a result of its cost-cutting efforts.
Musk made the comments during an appearance on Fox News’s “Special Report,” which aired on March 27, alongside other DOGE officials in response to questioning by host Bret Baier.
Baier asked Musk, who serves as a special adviser to President Donald Trump, how he could reassure Americans that the work DOGE is doing to target fraud and abuse and slash waste in the federal government will not impact their benefits.
In response, the billionaire businessman said that the work the advisory committee is doing will “help their benefits.”
“I want to emphasize that, as a result of the work of DOGE, legitimate recipients of Social Security will receive more money, not less money,” he said.
Musk did not provide further details regarding how DOGE’s work would boost Americans’ Social Security benefits but said that his comments “will be proven out to be true” and “let the record show that I said this.”
The tech entrepreneur, who the White House has confirmed is a “special government employee,” noted during the interview that he can only work on government business for 130 days each year.
When asked by Baier if he plans to stay past that 130-day period, Musk said he believes DOGE will have accomplished much of the work required to reduce the deficit by $1 trillion, or roughly 15 percent, within that timeframe.
“Our goal is to reduce waste and fraud by $4 billion a day, every day, seven days a week,” Musk said. “So far, we are succeeding.”
Some experts have said that DOGE will not be able to cut the deficit by 15 percent without impacting critical government services.
Musk said, however, that this was not the case.
“The government is not efficient, and there is a lot of waste and fraud, so we feel confident that a 15 percent reduction can be done without affecting any of the critical government services,” he said.
According to its official website, DOGE estimates that it has saved U.S. taxpayers a total of $130 billion to date through a combination of fraud detection and deletion, contract and lease cancellations and renegotiations, asset sales, grant cancellations, workforce reductions, programmatic changes, and regulatory savings that have been implemented across federal agencies.
Despite the advisory committee’s apparent success in achieving its cost-cutting goals, Musk told Baier that he would like DOGE to move faster with its cost-cutting activities.
“In the context of the government, we’re moving like lightning,” Musk said. “In the context of what I’m used to moving, it’s slower than what I’d like.
“So what seems like incredibly fast action by government standards is—it’s slower than I’d like, to be totally frank. But we are making solid progress.”
Meanwhile, DOGE faces multiple lawsuits seeking to impede its operations, including one regarding its access to Treasury Department payment systems data.
Musk acknowledged the mounting legal challenges during his appearance on Fox News, and described the work of DOGE as “a revolution.”
“I think it might be the biggest revolution in government since the original revolution,” he said. “But at the end of the day, America is going to be in much better shape; America will be solvent.
“The critical programs that people depend upon will work, and it’s going to be a fantastic future. Are we going to get a lot of complaints along the way? Absolutely.”
Katabella Roberts is a news writer for The Epoch Times, focusing primarily on the United States, world, and business news.
Reprinted with Permission from The Epoch Times – By Katabella Roberts
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AMAC or AMAC Action.
I think it’s kind of obvious, if you stop billions of dollars that are currently going to illegals, and people who are over 130 years old, those of us getting Social Security may not receive a cut in a few years. But, that is only if we’re smart enough to not vote Democrat again.
Never vote Democrat, and choose your conservatives wisely!
I think it is great someone is trying to clean up mess the democrat got us in. And all teh funny business going on in the white house.
I don’t really care if I get more $$ on my SS, but what I do care is that those who should NOT be getting it (from the dead on the roles or illegals). I heard that 103m illegals have applied for Social Security cards and they are automatically sent in the mail just by filling out an application for assistance…with no I.D., no verification of employment, etc., and this is a travesty to those of us who worked for 45 years to qualify for it. brandon’s administration has almost killed our country…thank the Lord there is some common sense and attempt to restore it.
Maybe President Trump can repurpose about half of the newly hired IRS agents to help investigate and locate some of these really old and dead recipients, then arrest them and seize all of their assets. Hard assets can be sold at auctions and liquid assets can be put back in the treasury. Then I would imagine that SS would not be circling the drain anymore.
Part of the reaction problem in any of these government jobs is that built in assumption that the job is a permanent guarantee job regardless despite the redundancy of the job with no performance increases, as the only increase was more people doing the same job with no increase in results. Productivity efficiency was not the goal and since these jobs are also unionized jobs the push was to increase the labor force but not increase productivity. Best way to apply the rationality of assumption that more workers are needed when productivity decreases is to look at the demise of manufacturing American made cars made by unionized workers versus foreign cars made in the USA by non-unionized workers. Somewhere along the path of development of manufacturing jobs and the addition of technology to help make the production process faster and more efficient, the union claimed that the workers could not be forced to learn how to use technology better because it’s use would lower the number of workers who are union members a lifeline for union survival. What is hidden in that demand is what the unions are spending the funds collected from their members which is not actually benefiting workers ( pay rates, pensions, benefits) but using those same funds for non workers needs. Unions don’t need to be highly involved financially with politicians and should not use union funds for donations to political campaigns. The unions heads are ignoring those whom they represent when they abuse those funds doing this.
What is not being said is there are no 130+ yr olds receiving Social Security payments. It’s some relative or some one illegally receiving them in that name. That has to stop, it’s costing those of us who are legally receiving Social Security, who have worked 50+ years to earn it.
CUT SS Hq waste alone admin overhead & CUT Illegals from rolls & dead persons.
We win when all 3 done
NO more illegals in SS rolls
Digitize SS records
I like that assessment of Stephan’s. Congress needs to enact changes quickly to solidify Donald Trump’s agenda or we WILL be back right where we started… in an economic black hole.
GO DOGE !!!!!!
AND some of those illegal aliens receiving SocSec are also on the Medicare coverage !!!
Absolutely criminal thanks to obaka’s puppet joey biden.
I am a Constitutional Conservative and would like to say this; Do NOT think that the Democrats are the only ones who got us into is mess. It was Democrats, RINOs and other career politicians that kept this mess going for decades!
It takes more than one hand to shovel this much horse apples. Please stop and think before you cast your vote for whatever money grubber you are sending to Washington.
The Democrats have GOT TO STOP LYING and getting people all upset. The spending outline passed didn’t mention Medicaid ONE SINGLE TIME (I read the bill to verify that), yet less than one week later the dems were holding up their little Save Medicaid paddles during Trump’s speech. Trust me, there are people that are buying into these lies and I’m afraid that elections today are close because of that successful misinformation campaign. Why else did the Dem party favorability go from 27 point to 37 points in less than 30 days? They are looking straight into the camera lens and lying through their teeth. Add the Hate Musk efforts and TDS, plus the crooked Judges, and the Republicans need to get out in front of all of this NOW. I hope I am wrong, but the lying is turning people away from MAGA because no one is correcting these liars and calling them out. This needs to be halted ASAP with daily information being put out in regular language that the average person can understand. WE NEED TO STOP BEING SO NICE, no resting on our laurels or Trump will end up as a lame duck President. People still watching Fox instead of Newsmax are being drawn away every single day. Wake up White House!!!
How can Musk increase the benefits as he claims? The monthly SS benefits are based on the records of earnings and number of months , so how can a person get more money if Musk does have savings. Any savings found by DOGE should go into the SS Trust Fund which should extend the life of SS.
they and democrats are the true ememys of the honest hard working god fearing republican consevative americans. they want to make the US into a third world country where they want to make us submissive to them. they want to keep us poor and dependent on the government for every thing thus keep them in office to continue the dismantling of of all our freedoms. the fake news are nazis and should be shut down for not speaking and printing the honest unbiased truths. they dont believe in reporting the truth. if they dont like the real facts they just make up what they want report and trying to shove the lie down out throats..
It’s only the corrupt Democrat Gang and their sheeple that are complaining. Go DOGE Go!
Because it worked for them in the past. But that was before they proved themselves not to be trustworthy. It’s a new day now!
Oh well let see what happens! Hopefully they will able able to clean of departed souls!
This week, both Trump & FOX news Jenie Pirro stated that Musk was highly intelligent. Just last week Musk said that Social Security was the Greatest Ponzi scheme that he had ever seen, so that just shows me that his intelligence does not recognize the importance of SS monthly benefits to +60 million Americans & to many that is their primary source of income.
If Elon wanted to cut some really large costs he would see to the US ceasing to be a slave of Netanyahu and stop sending that demon more and more artillery the creep uses to kill primarily women and children in Gaza and elsewhere in the countries that surround that UN manufactured by theft “homeland’.
He might also commit to ceasing all funding for the literal Nazis that infest Ukraine.
But hey, last time Elon dared speak against Netanyahu horrors he had to spend a week going through a stupid “apology tour”. My God Netanyahu has Trump and Company by the short and curlies.
Wait a minute. Musk is the same guy who said Social Security is a Ponzi scheme on the Joe Rogan Show. If it’s a Ponzi scheme, why in the world would you give people more “Ponzi dollars?”