Musk uses immigration, claims of voter fraud to sell Social Security cuts

Elon Musk and the Trump administration are pitching cuts in one of the most politically dangerous arenas in America — the Social Security Administration.

Musk has cast the idea as one that’s primarily about immigration, falsely claiming that undocumented immigrants are fraudulently accessing hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of entitlements, including Social Security, Medicaid and disability programs, as part of a Democratic scheme for votes. 

“By using entitlements fraud, the Democrats have been able to attract and retain vast numbers of illegal immigrants,” Musk, the billionaire tech CEO behind the Department of Government Efficiency, said Monday on Sen. Ted Cruz’s podcast, without evidence. “And buy voters. Basically bring in 10, 20 million people who are beholden to the Democrats for government handouts and will vote overwhelmingly Democrat, as has been demonstrated in California.”

Musk told Cruz, R-Texas, that his efforts to end the fraud he alleges are why people on the left “hate my guts and want me to die.” He said the fraud has cost the government $100 billion to $200 billion.

It’s an argument Musk has been making repeatedly in recent weeks, as DOGE and the Trump administration announce and push for more cuts to the SSA, including eliminating thousands of employees from the already lean agency, ending the ability to make claims by phone and shuttering dozens of field offices that help seniors access their benefits. 

The Trump administration has said repeatedly it isn’t cutting benefits — just fraud. And while it’s well known that fraud exists in programs such as Social Security and disability programs, experts say Americans and overseas crime rings are typically perpetrating fraud on entitlements. Asked for comment on Musk’s remarks and proof that immigrants living in the United States without legal status were to blame for the fraud, the White House didn’t offer any.

“If NBC wants to die on the hill of objecting to credible claims of fraud in our entitlements, especially by the millions of illegals Joe Biden let into this country, have at it,” White House deputy press secretary Harrison Fields said in a statement. “Our federal government is riddled with fraud, and President Trump is putting an end to that despite opposition from complacent Democrats and the mainstream media.”

Social Security sends retired people checks every month based on their incomes as working people, and it also sends checks to disabled people. Medicaid insures low-income people, while Medicare provides health insurance for people older than 65. Broadly, immigrants without legal status don’t qualify for federal dollars through the programs. Some states do fund health care for undocumented immigrants like pregnant women, and Medicaid will reimburse hospitals for emergency health care provided to low-income, undocumented immigrants, as hospitals aren’t allowed to turn away people seeking emergency care. That amounts to less than 1% of Medicaid’s annual spending. 

Social Security cuts have been a major focus of tense town halls for Republican lawmakers, with constituents expressing fear that cuts at the SSA could make it harder for them to access their benefits. 

According to a May report from the Office of the Inspector General, people were already experiencing prolonged wait times working with the SSA. The report noted that in-office appointments could be completely booked up for more than 40 days in the future and that it could take months for promised services to be delivered. The report said 65% of Social Security beneficiaries were unaware that there were online services for the agency.

But even with constituents struggling to interface with the SSA, Musk has portrayed pushback to his changes as politically motivated. 

“This is why the Democrats are so upset about the situation,” Musk said on Fox Business last week. “If we turn off this gigantic money magnet for illegal immigrants, then they will leave and they will lose voters.”

“Entitlements fraud for illegal aliens is what is serving as a gigantic magnetic force to pull people in from all around the world and keep them here,” he told Joe Rogan last month, without providing evidence. Musk has repeatedly posted a clip of that part of his interview, too. 

Musk’s argument crucially cast significant cuts to Social Security as a critical part of Trump’s agenda cracking down on illegal immigration, his most popular major issue, according to recent polling by NBC News. It’s also fundamentally inaccurate, experts and former executives told NBC News, warning that cuts made in the name of fraud will hurt eligible recipients of government benefits.

“When you look at the numbers, it’s actually the opposite: Undocumented immigrants cannot get SSI or Social Security benefits, but in fact, the undocumented immigrants contribute a lot to the Social Security system,” said Kathleen Romig, director of Social Security and disability policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-leaning think tank that studies government spending.

In 2022, immigrants working in the United States without legal authorization paid $25.7 billion in Social Security taxes and $6.4 billion in Medicare taxes, according to a recent analysis from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. It’s one of the things bolstering the program despite challenging demographics as the baby boomers retire with fewer younger, working people paying into the program at the same time. 

It’s not clear how far Musk, who didn’t respond to requests for comment, might want to go in changing Social Security, a program that dates to an act President Franklin Roosevelt signed in 1935 and currently provides benefits to more than 73 million retired and disabled people. As Musk has immersed himself in politics over the past year, he has posted about the program only occasionally. 

But Musk, who has called it “the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time,” has expressed interest at least once in the idea of privatizing Social Security. In December, he shared a social media thread about the topic by Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah. Lee had called Social Security a “nightmare” and wrote that people would be better off managing retirement savings at least partly on their own. Musk called Lee’s views “interesting.” 

Trump voiced support for privatizing Social Security back in 2004, but as a candidate and as president, he has vowed to protect entitlements. 

Musk’s latest statements haven’t included a mention of privatization, focusing instead on the idea that there’s widespread fraud or abuse by undocumented immigrants in the system — an allegation for which he hasn’t offered evidence and that experts say is inaccurate. 

Fraud exists within every government program, but a former executive at the SSA with knowledge of the agency’s anti-fraud program said overseas criminal rings’ stealing eligible people’s benefits and people’s faking disability or not reporting relatives’ deaths are the most common types of Social Security fraud, not fraud involving undocumented immigrants.

Drawing on Social Security requires people to verify their eligibility and work histories, effectively preventing immigrants without legal status from drawing benefits.

The former executive, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that undocumented immigrants who pay into the program by using other people’s Social Security numbers pose bureaucratic challenges when the actual owners of the Social Security numbers apply for benefits but that immigrants aren’t receiving any benefits.

Musk’s claim of a pipeline of undocumented immigrants to Democratic voters is also inaccurate. He is wrong to say undocumented immigrants are voting in statewide elections. Washington, D.C., and some municipalities in three states allow immigrants with legal status to vote in local elections, but it’s illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections, and no state allows noncitizens to vote in its elections, either. Some undocumented immigrants do eventually obtain citizenship — such as through marriage — that would allow them to vote. That process takes a minimum of three to five years.