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| - In early 2025, a rumor spread online that U.S. President Donald Trump's adviser on government efficiency, tech billionaire Elon Musk, called Social Security a "Ponzi scheme," thus claiming that the government's program offering monthly income to retirees, people with disabilities and families with a deceased spouse or parent is a form of investment fraud.
Ponzi schemes involve paying existing investors with funds collected from later investors. They eventually fail when they run out of new investors.
Musk's alleged comments appeared on social media platforms such as X, Facebook and Bluesky. Prominent politicians and public figures also shared his supposed remarks, including former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, Vermont Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders and New York Democrats Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Texas Democrat Rep. Greg Casar's X post about Musk's purported words had amassed more than 5.4 million views as of this writing.
On March 3, 2024, Democrats even held a news conference on the Trump administration's Social Security policies which featured Musk's purported comments:
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., at a news conference on Mar. 3, 2025. (Getty Images)
Musk, the public face of Trump's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), did in fact call Social Security "the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time" during a Feb. 28, 2025, appearance on "The Joe Rogan Experience" podcast. Therefore, we have rated this claim as a correct attribution.
The billionaire's comments are available at 1:01:58 in this YouTube video of his conversation with podcast host Joe Rogan (emphasis ours):
Musk: Social Security is the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time.
Rogan: Right, explain that.
Musk: Oh, so, well, 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. So you're — you're paying — you're paying — like, if you look at the future obligations of Social Security, it far exceeds the tax revenue. Far. Have you ever looked at the debt clock?
Rogan: Yes.
Musk: OK. 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 the future obligations. So basically, people are living way longer than expected and there are fewer babies being born. So you have more people who are retired that live for a long time and get retirement payments. So the future obligation — so however bad the financial situation is right now for the federal government, it will be much worse in the future.
The explanation behind Musk's claim that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme — his reasoning being that the program's future obligations exceed tax revenue — refers to a genuine issue.
According to a 2024 report from the Social Security Administration, even if the administration combined its reserves used to pay Social Security beneficiaries, the agency would only be able to pay the full amount of scheduled benefits until 2035. After that year, "the projected fund's reserves will become depleted and continuing total fund income will be sufficient to pay 83 percent of scheduled benefits."
By comparing the program to a Ponzi scheme, where existing investors are paid with funds collected from later investors, Musk was suggesting that Social Security — which is funded through a payroll tax wherein workers and employers pay into a fund that then pays for current retirees' benefits — is fraudulent.
However, Social Security, unlike a Ponzi scheme, is not inherently fraudulent, nor does the program promise "investors" artificially high returns with little to no risk, a hallmark of this kind of investment fraud. The report
Under current
Paragraph three on the "Summary" page of this 2022 Congressional report notes that Social Security beneficiaries are "legally entitled" to their full scheduled benefits even if the fund runs out. This is, however, in conflict with a law that prohibits the government from spending more than it has in available funds. Beneficiaries could sue for their full benefits in this case. The report also outlines hypothetical resolutions to such an issue, including making full payments on a delayed schedule or making timely but reduced payments.
Snopes previously debunked a rumor that Musk said he wants to cut Social Security benefits and unpacked the billionaire's claim that improbably old people were collecting benefits from the federal program.
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