Elon Musk appeared on Joe Rogan’s virtually unlistenable podcast Friday to do some harm management for his unlawful assaults on U.S. authorities companies, and he didn’t miss the chance to additionally push lies concerning the GOP’s deliberate cuts to Social Safety, which he described as “the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time.”
Rogan’s podcast scores have been tanking because the platform has been taken over by billionaires trying to launder self-serving propaganda, and Musk’s look was no totally different. Like his earlier look on the present, the dialog was a conspiracy-laden echo chamber of disinformation.
“We found just with a basic search of the Social Security database that there were 20 million dead people marked as alive,” Musk claimed with out offering a shred of proof.
However his lies had been rapidly countered by Democrats.
“This guy is a leech on the public. No matter how many billions he gets in tax cuts and government contracts, it will never be enough for him. Now he’s going after the elderly, the disabled, and orphaned children so he can pocket it in tax cuts for himself. It’s disgusting,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York wrote on X.
Demonstrators throughout a protest towards Elon Musk and DOGE exterior of a Tesla showroom in New York on March 1, 2025.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders known as out Musk for pushing his personal pro-billionaire agenda.
“Wrong, Elon. Social Security has paid every benefit owed to every eligible American for 86 years. We can make it solvent for the next 75 years and expand benefits by scrapping the cap that allows billionaires like you to pay the same amount into Social Security as a truck driver,” he wrote on X.
As of 2025, the utmost taxable earnings topic to Social Safety is $176,100. Sanders and others have known as for an finish to the cap on taxable earnings, arguing that the burden falls unfairly on middle- and working-class People.
The Congressional Price range Workplace took an analogous stance in 2022, calling the tax “regressive” due to the disparity between what common People pay into Social Safety and what the rich pay.
Democratic Rep. John Larson of Connecticut detailed how little individuals like Musk and different billionaires pay into the Social Safety system.
“According to public data on Musk’s income, 15 minutes past midnight on New Year’s Eve, he likely has paid all of his Social Security tax on earnings from Tesla. If all of Musk’s income was taxed, he would have been able to pay all his Social Security tax in about 60 seconds,” he wrote. “In contrast, over 164 million workers (about 94% of us) pay Social Security taxes all year long. The point is a lot of income escapes the Social Security system; and the escaping income is that from the wealthiest Americans.”
Together with the Division of Authorities Effectivity cabal and the GOP’s assaults on Social Safety, Musk has been searching for alternatives to downsize widespread and profitable authorities applications like Social Safety, Medicaid, and meals stamps to make room for billionaire tax breaks.
President Donald Trump’s marketing campaign promise to not contact Social Safety was at all times a lie, which he’s more likely to reiterate throughout Tuesday evening’s congressional deal with. However whether or not he’ll be capable of assuage the rising fears amongst People—together with his personal voters—stays to be seen.
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