Posted on Thursday, April 10, 2025
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by Andrew Shirley
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8 Comments
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Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has once again revealed staggering levels of waste, fraud, and abuse within the federal government. In a recent interview with Fox News, Musk alleged that one Social Security scammer was able to “rip off” 400,000 Americans by selling their Social Security information.
“They call in, they claim to be a retiree, and they convince the Social Security person on the phone to change where the money is flowing,” Musk explained. “It actually goes to some fraudster. This is happening all day, every day. And then somebody doesn’t receive their Social Security, it’s because of all the fraud loopholes in the Social Security system.”
Musk has also highlighted apparent evidence of the Biden administration adding enormous numbers of illegal aliens to the Social Security system – which he alleged was part of a broader scheme to grant noncitizens access to the ballot box.
Speaking at an event in Wisconsin, Musk shared a chart showing a dramatic spike in the number of new Social Security numbers during the Biden administration. “In 2021, you see 200,000 people [gaining Social Security numbers],” Musk said. “It goes all the way to 2.1 million in 2024. These are non-citizens that are getting Social Security numbers.”
“This literally blew us away,” said venture capitalist Antonio Gracias, who was on stage with Musk at the event. “If I hadn’t seen this myself, I’m not sure I would have believed it. I went through it myself and mapped it. And Elon is right. This is true… We found some by sampling that actually did vote.”
If the legacy press were concerned at all about holding those in power accountable and exposing corruption in Washington, both of these stories would have received wall-to-wall coverage.
But the corporate media has had no interest in investigating these or any other similar claims from Musk and his DOGE team. Instead, they’ve insisted that the real threat to Social Security is not the fraudulent behavior Musk is uncovering, but rather Musk himself and the Trump administration’s waste-cutting agenda.
Last month, for instance, Axios covered Social Security fraud with this headline: “In DOGE Effort to Combat Fraud, Social Security’s Core Mission Is at Stake.” Similarly, ABC News ran with the headline, “Elon Musk’s Disclosure of Planned Social Security Fraud Arrests Troubles Top Law Enforcement Officers.”
These two stories are representative of a consistent trend in how the media and elected Democrats are treating DOGE’s efforts. In essence, the narrative is that the problem isn’t the waste, fraud, and abuse in Social Security, but the fact that Elon Musk and DOGE have dared to expose how Americans have been ripped off by that waste, fraud, and abuse for decades. Any good-faith criticism of how Social Security is being run is, according to Democrats and the media, tantamount to saying that Social Security should not exist at all.
Of course, the great irony in Democrats’ claims that Musk and Trump want to cut Social Security is that eliminating fraud is one of the most surefire ways to protect Social Security benefits.
Even the most liberal partisan can’t deny that significant levels of Social Security fraud exist. A Government Accountability Office [GAO] report from April 2024, issued when Joe Biden was in office, revealed that Americans were defrauded via government programs to the tune of between $233 billion and $521 per year from 2018 to 2022.
Another report out last August from the Office of the Inspector General at the Social Security Administration found nearly $72 billion in improper payments from 2015 to 2022. Musk and DOGE have provided evidence that the actual figure may be orders of magnitude greater than that.
Democrat presidents have themselves championed efforts to eliminate fraud in Social Security. Back in 2010, Barack Obama made a big show of signing the “Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act.” It didn’t amount to much of anything in the way of reducing improper payments, but the media nonetheless celebrated him as a champion of transparency and accountability. Now the media is treating Trump and Musk as villains for taking action to expose and eliminate fraud and improper payments.
The liberal establishment’s dismissal of serious allegations of fraud simply because they come from someone they don’t like should trouble all Americans, regardless of their political affiliation. Waste and theft in government programs don’t discriminate – they hurt everyone, especially the elderly who rely on Social Security the most.
The unfortunate reality is that Democrats and the media have become so cynical and tribal that, in their crusade to “get Trump,” they’ll sink to any low – even covering for thieves stealing from the American people and politicians possibly weaponizing Social Security to rig elections.
Andrew Shirley is a veteran speechwriter and AMAC Newsline columnist. His commentary can be found on X at @AA_Shirley.
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