In a move that is likely to have many members of Congress on edge, Elon Musk is planning to have the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) look into how lawmakers have become “strangely wealthy” despite their relatively modest public salaries.
Speaking at a town hall in Wisconsin on Sunday night, Musk revealed that his team at DOGE will investigate how certain members of Congress have amassed fortunes that far exceed their official earnings. With the prospect of real scrutiny on their finances, those who’ve been cashing in on their positions have every reason to be nervous.
One attendee at the town hall had asked Musk if DOGE had uncovered evidence of funds wired from the US Agency for International Development (USAID) to Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY).
“They’ll [the government] send the money overseas to one NGO [non-governmental organization], then they’ll go through a bunch of them, and then I’m highly confident that a bunch of that money then comes back to the United States and lands in the pockets of the people you just mentioned,” Musk replied.
“But it is a circuitous route. It doesn’t go directly, but let’s just say that there’s a lot of strangely wealthy members of Congress where I’m trying to connect the dots of, ‘How do they become rich?'”
Rank-and-file members of Congress make $174,000 annually. Last year, Musk — whose net worth is pegged at $330 billion by Bloomberg — helped kill legislation to raise congressional pay, then later supported an increase as a means of fighting corruption.
Scores of lawmakers who have spent decades in Congress are millionaires.
BREAKING: Elon Musk reveals that he and the DOGE team are examining how congressional members are amassing vast wealth despite their public sector paychecks.
— Dinesh D'Souza (@DineshDSouza) March 31, 2025
Nobody can explain how someone earning $200,000 a year it’s a net worth of $20 million.
pic.twitter.com/1azAfWkjsI
Two of the wealthiest members of Congress are former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), with an estimated net worth of $250 million, and Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), whose fortune sits around $552 million. Of course, their situations are vastly different. Scott built his fortune before entering politics, co-founding HCA Healthcare — a massive hospital and medical facility network in Florida — as well as Solantic, a chain of urgent-care clinics.
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Pelosi’s immense wealth, however, is deeply tied to a series of remarkably well-timed stock trades that she and her venture capitalist husband, Paul, made with major investments in tech giants like Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Netflix. Her uncanny ability to make profitable trades has raised serious suspicions, with many believing that her position in Congress has given her an unfair advantage that ordinary Americans could only dream of.
“How do they get $20 million if they’re earning $200,000 a year?” Musk asked. “We’re going to try to figure it out and certainly stop it from happening.”
Faster please.
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