Democrats see opportunity in Musk threat to 'eliminate' social security

The party believes plans by Trump's billionaire ally to slash welfare and health schemes may be turned to its advantage.

- Lauren Gambino

For most of the 17-minute interview, Elon Musk stuck to a script. He was just a tech guy on a mission to “eliminate waste and fraud” from government spending.

His slash-and-burn cost-cutting crusade was making “good progress, actually”, he said to Fox Business commentator Larry Kudlow on Monday, despite sparking a backlash that has reverberated far beyond Washington. “Really, I just don’t want America to go bankrupt,” Musk added.

But then Kudlow asked him to look forward. Would his “department of government efficiency” (Doge) still be in place in a year? He thought so — his assignment was not quite complete.

Musk, the world’s richest man, then pointed to social security - the widely popular federal programme that provides monthly benefits to retirees and people with disabilities - and other social safety net initiatives: “Most of the federal spending is entitlements. That's the big one to eliminate.” For weeks, Donald Trump and fellow Republicans have insisted that social security and the Medicaid and Medicare health insurance programmes will not “be touched”. Now, however, Musk suggested they would be a primary target. Almost as soon as the words left his mouth, Democrats pounced.

“The average social security recipient in this country receives $65 a day. They have to survive on $65 a day. But you want to take a chainsaw to social security, when Elon Musk and his tens of billions of dollars of government contracts essentially makes at least $8m a day from the taxpayers,” said Hakeem Jeffries, the US House minority leader. “If you want to uncover waste, fraud or abuse, start there.”