A Close Elon Musk Friend Joins His Effort on Social Security

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: New York Times

A Close Elon Musk Friend Joins His Effort on Social Security

The involvement of Antonio Gracias, an investor who has known Elon Musk for two decades, suggests that Mr. Musk has made overhauling the Social Security Administration a priority.

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A private equity investor who is one of Elon Musk’s closest confidants has taken a new role in the Social Security Administration, a development that could be politically combustible given the program’s popularity with voters and Mr. Musk’s apparent intent to make major changes at the agency. The investor, Antonio Gracias, who has served on the boards of Mr. Musk’s businesses Tesla and SpaceX, has started a job at the administration as part of the Musk-led cost-cutting effort.

The involvement of such a close ally with the Social Security Administration suggests that Mr. Musk has made overhauling the agency a priority; in recent weeks, the tech billionaire has regularly talked about supposed fraud inside the system. Two weeks ago, he referred to Social Security as “the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time,” and this week he claimed that fraud in the program and other major entitlement spending was “the big one to eliminate.”

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Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/14/us/politics/elon-musk-antonio-gracias-social-security-administration.html

[JMCKUSICK]

1. Can we file a class action lawsuit designed to protect

Every penny each of us has ever paid into Social Security?

[pfitz59]

2. He wants to privatize it

and run every payment through his software for a 'small' administrative fee. BTW - 'Privatized' SS would be subject to market manipulation and outright fraud. Dems must fight this with all our hearts!

[Bengus81]

6. So did Bush Jr. If everything hadn't gone to shit who knows, Enron could have had

all the SS funds shifted to them as the new administrators. SS would have been gone forever back then in that whole debacle.

[not fooled]

3. Thieves getting together

to plan the heist.

WTF is wrong with this country that this could even be contemplated?

America--what a disaster.

[serbbral]

4. Social Security

I do not collect SS yet, but will be eligible in a few years. With that being said, if I were receiving it and they all of a sudden take it away (which I know they are working on, even cuts), I would hope the majority of Americans (including myself) would get them a lawyer, because it is stealing. I see this as no different than a scam.

[Bayard]

5. Its not their money to, "invest!"

Its our money, and we get to say what happens to it. Are they going to take on a fiduciary duty to make us money on our investments? I'm thinking their plan is just to take the money and run.

[Daddylopez]

7. I never agreed to this I want an opt out option

I never agreed to this I want an opt out option and just return all my money to me at once, I can invest my own money.

[cliffside]

8. knr ... Stephanie Ruhle on MSNBC mentioned this article ...

from the article.

"... Of the more than 50 people who have joined Mr. Musk in Washington, almost none have as extensive a history with him as Mr. Gracias. The men met around two decades ago and in that time, Mr. Gracias has become one of Mr. Musk’s most trusted advisers...

... Nine DOGE members have arrived at the Social Security Administration in recent days. They include Mr. Gracias and two other men who work at his investment firm, Valor Equity Partners — Jon Koval, a vice president on the investment team, and Payton Rehling, a data engineer — according to documents seen by The Times.

But he said that he and his team at Valor had been scrutinizing audits of the Social Security Administration and that he had been alarmed by the size of its so-called trust funds, government accounts created to make sure Americans receive their full benefits. Mr. Gracias said he believed this showed there were “material weaknesses” in the system.

Some Republicans have suggested that the government could repurpose cash from the Social Security trust funds, which grew over decades as Americans paid more taxes into the program than they took out in benefits. But now, as Americans now take out more in benefits than they pay in taxes, Social Security has been depleting the trust funds — which consist of bonds earmarked for funding benefits. In short, the funds have no such cash available to repurpose..."