Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, has continued his campaign to aggressively undercut Social Security, leveling baseless and often misleading attacks on the insurance program.
During an event in Wisconsin on Sunday for a state judicial race, Mr. Musk, who has made inaccurate and unsupported claims about dead people and unauthorized immigrants receiving benefits and broad allegations of widespread fraud, took aim at phone calls to the Social Security Administration.
It is part of Mr. Musk’s broader bid to identify what he deems waste and abuse across the federal government, and the entitlement program has been in his cross hairs in recent weeks.
The cost-cutting initiative Mr. Musk leads, the Department of Government Efficiency, did not respond to requests for comment.
What Was Said
“One interesting statistic was that 40 percent of the calls into Social Security were fraudulent, meaning that it was someone trying to get a Social Security payment that was going to a senior instead to go to a fraud ring.”
— during a campaign event in Wisconsin on Sunday
This is misleading. Mr. Musk appears to have misunderstood a statistic from the Social Security Administration. The agency recently estimated that 40 percent of direct deposit fraud, one specific type of fraud, occurred via calls to the agency. That is not the same thing as 40 percent of all telephone calls being fraudulent.