Elon Musk made an appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience this week, and the left is freaking out because he called out the Social Security Administration as the “biggest Ponzi scheme of all time.” The Tesla billionaire claimed the system is unsustainable and will only make America’s financial future “much worse.”
“Elon, let me explain this to you,” the newly-elected DNC chairman Ken Martin said in a post on X. “Social Security keeps millions of American seniors out of poverty. You’re a billionaire who’ll never need it. A Ponzi scheme is a type of investment fraud. And who knows more about being a fraud than you?”
“Tell the 80 million Americans who worked hard to earn Social Security and depend on their benefits that it’s a Ponzi scheme,” whined Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) “Democrats will fight tooth and nail to protect Social Security.”
“Social Security is not a Ponzi scheme it’s a promise that every American pays into so they can retire with dignity,” Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) opined. “Get loud and tell Elon Musk to keep his hands OFF social security.”
“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,” lamented Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). “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.”
Was Musk attacking the elderly? Of course not. I’m sure they didn’t even listen to Musk’s explanation for why Social Security is a Ponzi scheme.
A Ponzi scheme, of course, is a fraudulent investment scam where returns are paid to earlier investors using the capital from newer investors, rather than legitimate profits. It collapses when new investments dry up.
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Social Security operates on a pay-as-you-go basis, where current workers’ payroll taxes fund the benefits of current retirees. This structure depends on a continuous influx of new workers to maintain solvency, which is very similar to a Ponzi scheme, which also relies on new investors to pay returns to earlier ones. The key difference, of course, is that Social Security is a government-mandated program. Despite these distinctions, demographic shifts, such as increased life expectancy and lower birth rates, have led to fewer workers supporting more retirees, straining the system’s sustainability. Without reforms, Social Security will inevitably struggle to meet its future obligations, echoing the eventual collapse characteristic of Ponzi schemes.
And that’s exactly Musk’s point.
“Social Security is the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time,” Musk said. “People pay into Social Security, and the money goes out of Social Security immediately. But the obligation for Social Security is your entire retirement career.”
According to Musk, the math simply doesn’t add up. “If you look at the future obligations of Social Security, it far exceeds the tax revenue,” he warned, adding that the country’s debt will effectively double because of these liabilities.
“Have you ever looked at the debt clock?” he asked. “There’s our present-day debt, but then there’s our future obligations. So, when you look at the future obligations of Social Security, the actual national debt is like double what people think it is because of future obligations.”
Musk also pointed out a demographic crisis fueling the problem. “Basically, people are living way longer than expected, and there are fewer babies being born, so you have more people who are retired and that live for a long time and get retirement payments,” he told Rogan.
BREAKING: Elon Musk called Social Security "the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time" in an interview with Joe Rogan. pic.twitter.com/gCrDPLM15u
— More Perfect Union (@MorePerfectUS) March 1, 2025
This isn't an attack on the people who get Social Security; it's pointing out how the program is spiraling toward insolvency—a warning Democrats have ignored for decades.
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