In a recent interview, Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance suggested that multi-billionaire Elon Musk would consider making cuts to Social Security if Donald Trump is elected president this fall.
Earlier in September, Trump pledged to create a “government efficiency commission” tasked with making cuts to federal spending. He also said that he had discussed the idea with Musk, who told Trump he would lead the commission. Musk confirmed the conversation on X, formerly known as Twitter, saying that he’d happily lead such a commission in a Trump administration.
In a podcast interview last week, Vance said that he, too, has had conversations about the idea with Musk.
“I’ve spoken with Elon a little bit about [the task force],” Vance said in the interview.
Although the task force would theoretically look at all federal spending, Vance specifically cited two agencies that would be under Musk’s purview if such a scenario were to play out.
Vance said that the “complicated” part of the commission’s work would be developing a strategy to examine each agency’s spending. “It’s going to look much different in, say, the Department of Defense versus Social Security,” Vance said.
As reported by The New Republic, Vance’s comments indicate that no government agency — including programs like Social Security — would be off-limits to Musk’s “efficiency” commission.
The publication’s report also noted that Musk’s decision-making when it comes to his own businesses hasn’t exactly been sound — when the billionaire purchased Twitter, for example, he fired around 80 percent of the staff on what was basically a whim in the name of trimming spending, a move that contributed to the rise in far right extremist accounts and vitriol on the site that has persisted ever since.
That Musk could potentially have a decision-making role in a future Trump administration is troubling, as he has shared numerous false conspiracy theories on his account (including the baseless “Pizzagate” theory). He has also promoted accounts and posts pushing far right and antisemitic viewpoints, including some that deny historical events like the Holocaust.
More recently, Musk issued a post questioning why President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris haven’t yet been targets of assassination attempts during the presidential campaign. After his post was met with widespread criticism, Musk deleted it and claimed it was a “joke,” despite stating in replies to the post that he was asking a serious question.
