An unelected billionaire is gunning for Social Security. Get Musk out, now.
Summary
Elon Musk sparked controversy by falsely claiming entitlement programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid have "$700 billion" in fraud annually, vastly exaggerating the actual figure (~$10 billion/year).
Musk labeled Social Security a "Ponzi scheme" and spread conspiracies about immigrants exploiting the system.
Critics argue Musk’s ignorance and conspiracy-mongering threaten essential public programs and data privacy, while his inflammatory rhetoric—such as calling Senator Mark Kelly, a former astronaut and combat veteran, a "traitor"—reinforces demands for his immediate removal from government.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2025/03/12/musk-social-security-medicare-eliminate-entitlements/82273674007/Open linkView original on lemmy.world836
Comments76
Musk is ruining America.
MIRA?
que pasa
Why aren't you all protesting? You should all be out on the streets.
Your politicians aren't going to save you.
There are protests everywhere. The media isn't covering them.
Then rush the media!
What does that entail? They will only air what they want.
Take over their studios, by force. As Karl Marx would put it, "Means of production".
People in the US think politics is just another soap opera on the daytime TV that has nothing to do with their lives just like watching celebrities and Trump was picked because he adds to all that
Biden was deliberately put in office to be a good step stool for Trump
Well, they do have a Gerry Springer guest in the White House.
Trump literally nominated Dr. Oz for administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Obviously the best pick to head government healthcare is the top "medical" talk show host.
😬
I mean, he's a reality TV star.
Hard to feed yourself on the street
I wonder why he always brings his toddler kid to public gatherings...
I have a theory his kid is a human shield so he doesn’t get luigi’ed.
He's been wearing that kid like a hat ever since that CEO got shot. First time anyone had EVER seen the kid in public, too, and suddenly he hasn't been seen anywhere without him.
Imagine getting older and realizing your dad only spent time with you to avoid getting shot. Poor kid.
I just saw this and had to share. Seems you’re right….
I hope he continues to give that kid rides on his shoulders, that someday it'll be a full-grown man getting rides from his pops. He'll have to duck to get through doors
Hopefully he won't be around that long
All it does is puts a second person on that side of the trolly tracks.
It's a strange tactic coming from someone who supports Israel, where "human shield" is used as justification to destroy said shield along with the target.
I feel like he's a lot more at risk of getting Luigi-ed by his own kids than most people are.
Well they would have more of an opportunity 🤷
"Imagine being one of Musk’s other children. You know, the ones who don’t get picked to be daddy's human shield due to their small size and ability to be held up in front of bullets."
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
Social Security is a non-partisan red line.
If this chode killed it his chances of survival would plummet.
That the case may be, but he'd be a martyr for the ultra-capitalistic sorts that make these efforts their life's work.
A despicable end, but one that may appeal to Musk himself.
Nah. No one would mourn him. The next ultra rich person would learn from his mistakes, but continue on with his work.
I really hope he fucks with it.
I would buy all the popcorn to watch 2 million boomers walk up Pennsylvania Avenue to Gaddafi his ass for days.
Same, I truly believe Americans won't be on the same page about anything. Unless they fuck with it.
Ha. I'd argue the time for pitchforks is already here.
I have one in my shed maybe I'll pull it out!
He needs to be able to steal that money, you guyzzzzz!
Enriching fElon is about "efficiency", at least according to MOE - the Ministry of Efficiency, where up is down, black is white.
Musk = POS Nazi.
Redundant statement is redundant.
If he guts SS, it will be his demise. That’s all the working class has to look forward to.
77 million mouth breathers will blame “woke”
You could've said that 1,000x by now. Nothing will wake these people up.
At the first missed payment, they'll start burning down Social Security offices.
You don't want to piss off the old people. For many of them, its all they have. If you take that away, they'll have nothing left to lose, and lot of them are armed. That's a bad combination.
They'll just hold a press conference and tell the people how that's Obama's (the black man, remember) fault.
Unelected tech lord deciding grandma's retirement funds is exactly the cyberpunk hellscape novels warned us about.
🐱
Republicans are doing a great job on both sides...social security in case your luck fucks out, and the market in case your thought you could get away:
Who said retirement? That's illegal! You and I will be working for elon until we both end up 6' under. (By that I mean fucking dead like a month Python parrot)
He’ll be replaced with another billionaire. Why are people focused on musk instead of at the root of the problem?
Perhaps if we made a strong enough example of him it'll make other billionaires think twice. The De Witt Brothers come to mind, tell them "It's either this or 92% wealth tax on assets, you pick."
There will always be a billionaire somewhere out there who’d be willing to give it a go. They don’t need to be a wealthy American who doesn’t want to pay taxes to do it. They can be a Russian oligarch. We need to get to the root source.
Then perhaps we should be so ruthless against that sort of practice, that it just doesn't look worth the gamble. Yes I agree, we need to get to the root source, but the billionaires are standing in the way of that arent they. Once upon a time they used to call social programs and such "Riot Tax" so we don't go after them, but we've clearly proven we don't even need a "riot tax" since we've proven to them we won't brutally deal with them in the most humiliating and painfully scary way possible. They're not worried about maintaining their social code because we're not giving them the appropriate consequences, so yes, as long as we don't sufficiently scare them another billionaire will take a crack at it.
Who is "we"? You're not American.
Hello there, random from another thread. Don't you have better things to do than combing through strangers posts?
If looking at posts Ive already commented in is "combing through strangers posts"... well, I suppose. Somehow. Or something.
maiden fan?
And poker
Musk is a symptom! Trump is the elected guy responsible for the actions of his "employee". Get him out and fix the nation!
Trump is also a symptom
Specifically, he is just one a dozen+ members what I dub Yarvin's Cabal, a group of elites trying to implement Project 2025. They all need to be hanging out with Mussolini, else the enshittification of America will continue unabated.
Like a sucking chest wound is a symptom.
While playing whack a mole with symptoms won't fix the problem, once enough moles are whacked the problem becomes clearer. So let's not let perfect be the enemy of progress.
Well, he is correct about that. But in true republican fashion his solution is to get rid of it, instead of reforming it to be more sustainable without infinite population growth
This isn't what I'd expect to see from the McPaper.
We can't move to direct voting quickly enough.
Get these "representatives" out of power and put them in regular jobs like the rest of us.
He may not be elected but he paid the guy who got elected a ton of money, so that's basically the same as being elected... Right? Right?!?
I do not understand why the fact that Musk is "unelected" matters so much to everyone. Is the Secretary of Defence elected? The Attorney General?
Those are real positions that are appointed by every President. "DOGE" is a complete bullshit position/department pulled out of thin air to avoid any kind of confirmation and/or security clearance.
It is incredibly dangerous for a President to be allowed to invent whole government departments and appoint whoever he wants to them without any checks and balances.
oh I fully agree. But you didn't address the issue of electedness at all.
It is in fact common for presidents to make up new advisory positions. If Trump wanted to make up an "Advisor of Best-Tasting Coffee", there's no problems there - they can help him make decisions with executive orders, or inform Congress about best steps forward for certain initiatives, etc. So just "making up a role" isn't an issue in itself.
BUT, even the attorney general or SoD would not have powers to fire people at will all over the administration. In many court cases it's been found even Trump himself wouldn't have that power.
so it's a lot of power that he has, too much power. I think we agree here -- but nothing you're saying seems to be related to electedness. If Trump, who was elected, shouldn't have the power, and yet Musk does, then "unelected" doesn't seem remotely relevant to the problem.
I think it's just to point out another layer of legitimacy he doesn't have to do what he's doing.
You don't hear this criticism levelled at other malfunctioning government officials though. Perhaps one would if they went as off-the-rails as Musk. Still, I wish people would use accurate critiques of their opponents, such as as @Doctor_Satan mentions, that he is wholly without cheques or balances.
And he's not a government official, even though he's impersonating one, and that the administration tells the public he's in charge of a government agency but tells the courts he's not.
While all of these things are true, I find it disingenuous to imply that his not having been elected is somehow less accurate than any other criticism levelled against him.
okay, so he's not a government official. I think that "not a government official" would be a great description, still better than "unelected" which in my opinion is not relevant -- he was appointed directly by an elected official, just like actual government officials. I don't see why it's disingenuous.
@sporkler @jsomae has he formally passed any security checks yet?
I doubt he could pass a captcha.
No. I'm sick of ratcheting right, of normalizing the former Republican president's regime by half, of promising that maybe, eventually, long after my kids have died of old age, we'll get around to fixing what's broken. A return to normalcy will only legitimize this fucking bullshit. The climate is collapsing, there's microplastics in my brain and balls, the wealthy are actively trying to re-establish feudalism, and the level best the democrats can do is hold up signs and give me downvotes when I say they're not doing enough. There's evidence coming out that microplastics inhibit photosynthesis and cause crop failures, the shit's everywhere, and lol and fucking behold the UN can't even talk about it without getting drowned in a tsunami of lobbyists. Yes, hello, my name is Timothy Thompson, I'm with United Plastics, and I'm here to tell you about how single use plastics are good actually; can I offer you $5,000? I've recently come around to the idea that there's only around 10,000 very specific enormously wealthy, influential, or both people that we'd need to persuade to make the world a better, more livable place for everyone on the planet now and in the future, and right now, they aren't being effectively persuaded.
Friendship ended with centrist democrats. I am now friends with accelerationism.
How many Luigi's do we need to persuade the rest of the 10,000?
More than the one, it seems