1). “Could Elon Musk Be Paying Your Social Security Check? Musk now has access to the US Treasury payment system, which handles Social Security checks. Will your check be on time? Will your data be safe?”, Feb 5, 2025, Maurie Backman, Kiplinger, at < https://www.kiplinger.com/
2). “What You Need to Know About Elon Musk's Access to Medicare: Officials at Musk-led DOGE were given access to the inner workings of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), an agency with a $2 trillion budget”, Feb 6, 2025, Kathryn Pomroy, Kiplinger, at < https://www.kiplinger.com/
3). “Elon Musk now has his eyes on Medicare and Medicaid”, Feb 7, 2025, Ron Southwick, Chief Health Care Executive, at < https://www.
4). “Nazi billionaires: Fascism in the Elon Musk family tree”, Jan 26, 2025, Lev Koufax, Struggle / La Lucha, at < https://www.struggle-la-lucha.
~~ recommended by dmorista ~~
Introduction by dmorista: The world's richest criminal and swindler has been given nearly complete access to the financial control and disbursement systems of the U.S. Federal Government; that includes the mechanisms and computer systems that pay the social security and medicare expenses of our society. Musk wants to steal as much of the money as possible and to loot the treasury so that the Federal Government cannot function. A truly shocking development.
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Could Elon Musk Be Paying Your Social Security Check?
Musk now has access to the US Treasury payment system, which handles Social Security checks. Will your check be on time? Will your data be safe?
Elon Must isn't just the world's richest person. He's also a man who may now have access to every single taxpayer's personal financial data.
On Jan. 31, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent granted members of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), including Musk, access to the U.S. Treasury’s federal payment system. This system disburses trillions of dollars each year for programs that include Social Security and Medicare. It’s unclear what happens next.
With this move, Musk has effectively gained access to the federal government’s checkbook. As a result, Musk, tasked with cutting wasteful spending, has attained a level of control that many find unsettling.
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The decision to grant Musk access to the Treasury’s payment system was not without controversy either. Last week, David Lebryk, a top Treasury official who worked there for decades, was ousted after aiming to block Musk’s access. He was initially put on leave and subsequently announced his retirement.
Democrats push back
Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) questioned the decision to grant Musk access to the federal payment system. In a Jan. 31 letter, he stated, "I can think of no good reason why political operators who have demonstrated a blatant disregard for the law would need access to these sensitive, mission-critical systems."
Wyden also expressed concern that the mismanagement of the federal payment system could threaten the full faith and credit of the U.S., a concern echoed in a February 2 letter from Senator Elizabeth Warren (D. -Mass) to the new Treasury secretary. Wyden noted that Musk was not only denied high-level security clearance but that his business dealings overseas could put the U.S. at greater risk of a cybersecurity attack.
When asked about Musk's control of the U.S. Treasury payment system, President Donald Trump said, "We’ll give him the approval when appropriate; where not appropriate, we won’t."
Americans have questions
In late January, the White House was blocked from freezing federal grants and loans, and on February 6, a judge paused a buyout offer to federal employees just as the deadline was about to expire. Now, the concern shifts to other government programs Musk may or may not have the power to control. Here are a couple of the more pressing questions consumers will likely have.
Will you get your Social Security check on time?
Millions of Americans depend on Social Security's regular payments, which are processed through the Treasury payment system. There's no reason to believe your next Social Security check will be late due to the change in management. In a February 4 letter to members of Congress, the Treasury Department wrote, "The review at the Fiscal Service has not caused payments for obligations such as Social Security and Medicare to be delayed or re-routed."
Although President Trump's offer to buy out federal workers was paused on February 6, if reinstated, it could disrupt Social Security services. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and other senators wrote to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management that the Social Security Administration is already facing staff shortages, and reducing staff even further could increase wait times. "In 2024, the average wait time for service via phone was 45 minutes; in 2023 the average wait time for disability determinations was 230 days, and SSA staffing was at a 25-year low."
There's also no indication that Musk's team will stop your Social Security check. According to The New York Times, Musk intends to focus cost-cutting efforts on blocking improper payments across government agencies rather than stopping individual checks.
Democrats vowed to protect Social Security and other payments with a bill. “We must protect people’s Social Security payments, their Medicare payments, tax refunds, from any possible tampering by DOGE or any other unauthorized entities,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY.) said at a press conference on Monday.
Of course, the most significant risk to Social Security is its funding shortfall, as older Americans retire in droves and the program’s trust funds dwindle. There are no easy fixes. Potential solutions — including benefit cuts, raising the retirement age and tax increases — are politically difficult to enact. However, President Trump has stated that he will not touch Social Security.
That said, the Social Security Administration’s Office of the Inspector General found that between fiscal years 2015 and 2022, the agency lost almost $72 billion to improper payments, most of which were overpayments. Getting overpayments returned to Social Security fits within Musk's stated goal of blocking improper payments, though it would have only a marginal effect on the Social Security funding shortfall.
Is your personal data safe?
In theory, Musk and his team now have access to every American’s Social Security number and, in many cases, their banking information. However, the team is still bound by the law, which means any attempt to use that information for commercial or other purposes would likely result in legal challenges from Congress.
What's less clear is that this new, unidentified team will protect Americans' data security.
Unfortunately, identity theft is rampant, and Americans need assurances that government data is secure. Musk has been criticized for poor privacy and security decisions at some of his companies. For example, Tesla has a spotty record when protecting user data.
Musk has floated the idea of using blockchain technology to track government payments and, ideally, to improve efficiency. Blockchain helps make payments more transparent and immutable, offering real benefits for tracking transactions. Some municipalities within the U.S. have piloted blockchain initiatives. However, this technology is still relatively young, and it's hard to know what kind of privacy issues might arise from its use in tracking the largest payment system in the world.
DOGE is accessing Medicare and Medicaid systems
According to the Wall Street Journal, DOGE personnel have been at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) offices this week, with access to personal data systems. They are searching for fraud and waste and reviewing CMS's staffing. The article quoted people familiar with this effort as saying that, to the best of their knowledge, DOGE has access to the contracting system but not personal medical data.
Whether you're a fan or a detractor of Elon Musk, ultimately, he is a private citizen who’s been handed the key to an unfathomably large vault. We are in uncharted territory.
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What You Need to Know About Elon Musk's DOGE's Access to Medicare Systems
Officials at Musk-led DOGE were given access to agency data systems and technology at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), an agency with a $2 trillion budget.
Representative's of Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have been working at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), where they were given access to agency data systems and technology, CMS said in a statement earlier this week.
DOGE has been given access to systems with the Department of Health and Human Services, including the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), as it looks for what it says is waste and fraud in government. The news was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.
Late last month, DOGE gained access to the U.S. Treasury's federal payment system, a system that disburses trillions of dollars each year for programs that include Social Security and Medicare. (Read our story about Musk's access to the U.S. Treasury).
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To ease tension that could come with Musk's access to yet another government agency, two CMS agency veterans, one focused on policy and one focused on operations, are working alongside DOGE officials to ensure appropriate access to systems and technology, as well as spending that flows through them.
“We are taking a thoughtful approach to see where there may be opportunities for more effective and efficient use of resources in line with meeting the goals of President Trump,” the CMS statement said.
According to the Wall Street Journal, DOGE's access is "read-only," which means that DOGE affiliates cannot make changes to the systems. The WSJ also reported that no access has been given to databases that include identifiable personal health information of Medicare or Medicaid enrollees. That's good news to the millions currently enrolled in these programs.
DOGE officials are focusing on what they say consists of waste and fraud, while also examining departmental staffing at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid.
Medicaid, which is funded jointly by states and the federal government, provides health insurance to millions of people, including low-income adults, children, pregnant women, elderly adults, and people with disabilities, per the HHS website. Medicaid spending is expected to increase by 3.9% in 2025. At the state level, spending is expected to rise 7%, according to KFF.
This past Wednesday, in a post on X, Musk wrote: "Yeah, this is where the big money fraud is happening," referring to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, while reposting another user who referenced the Journal's report.
When asked about DOGE accessing CMS payment and contracting systems, representatives for the White House did not address specifics, as stated in the WSJ report. Still, they defended Musk and DOGE's actions overall, saying they were fulfilling Trump's commitment to make the federal government more accountable. "The people won't be affected," Trump said.
Earlier Government Accountability Office report findings
This past April, in a report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), concerns were raised about payment errors in Medicare and Medicaid. Known as "improper payments," these are payments that are either made in an incorrect amount or should not have been made at all.
The GAO estimated that the Department of Health and Human Services had a combined total of over $100 billion in improper payments in fiscal year 2023, representing 43% of all improper payments across all federal agencies. At that time, the GAO stressed the need for the federal government to strengthen its efforts to prevent these improper payments, which could include billing errors, fraud and/or overpayments.
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Nazi billionaires: Fascism in the Elon Musk family tree
It’s not a secret that Elon Musk embraces fascist and reactionary political movements. He makes no attempt to hide his political leanings. Musk’s support not just for Trump, but also for the German neo-Nazi party, Alternative for Deutschland or AfD, is open and widely covered in the mainstream press. Musk also financially supports the British Reform Party, another fascist European political party with a deeply anti-immigrant platform.
In recent years, Musk has become a key public figure in the politics of the global ruling class. However, Musk’s personal politics are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the role fascism plays in ruling-class politics and the United States’ history of recycling different fascist movements and figures to suit the imperialist agenda.
In fact, Elon isn’t even the first member of his own family to be prominent in right-wing politics and promote U.S. imperialist interests. South Africa itself provided the imperialists with a new bastion of right-wing demagogues and families after apartheid fell in the early 1990s. After Nelson Mandela took power, many white South Africans who supported apartheid found refuge in the U.S.
But the Musk family’s fascist legacy goes even further back than the 1990s. Musk’s maternal grandparents, Wyn Fletcher and Joshua Haldeman, were wealthy Canadian doctors with openly Nazi politics in the 1940s. In an interview, Elon’s father, Errol, spoke regarding the history of his ex-wife’s Nazi parents: “They used to support Hitler and all that sort of stuff. But they didn’t know, I don’t think they knew what the Nazis were doing. But they [the grandparents] were in the German Nazi party but in Canada. And they sympathise with the Germans.”
After the defeat of fascism at the hands of the Soviet Union and other allied forces, Haldeman and Fletcher continued their Nazi activism. However, explicit Nazism within Canadian politics was taboo at the time due to the recent war against Hitler’s Third Reich, a war that cost the lives of many Canadian soldiers.
There is an irony here considering the widespread amnesty Canada granted to hundreds of Ukrainian Nazi SS officers, such as Yaroslav Hunka. The Canadian government was widely criticized after the Canadian Parliament honored Hunka publicly. In addition to the Musk family, which is the focus of this article, the Canadian embrace of Ukrainian Nazis is another pertinent example of how the ruling class recycles fascist masses and institutions in the service of their own imperialist agendas.
Nonetheless, finding himself maligned and alienated, Haldeman moved his career and his family to apartheid South Africa, where his fascist politics were more openly supported. Once in South Africa, Haldeman stayed involved in political life, giving a speech in the 1950s where he asserted that apartheid South Africa was leading “White Christian Civilization” against the “International conspiracy of Jewish bankers” and the “hordes of colored people” he claimed the Jewish bankers controlled. This is Elon’s grandfather, and we are supposed to believe Elon’s recent Nazi salute was an awkward arm gesture.
It was no surprise when Haldeman and Fletcher’s daughter, Maye, married a prominent young right-wing politician and emerald mine investor named Errol Musk. Maye Musk herself has remained a steadfast fascist throughout her entire life. She has long supported Donald Trump, and just in October posted on X, asserting that Democrats only obtain votes by shipping “illegal immigrants” across the Mexican border. This sort of argument grows directly from the white supremacist “great replacement theory,” which asserts a Jewish cabal exists that aims to replace all white individuals in the U.S. with Black people and Latin American immigrants.
Errol remains openly right-wing in his views, and his emerald mine investments raised his family’s wealth and influence to a level that only Elon has since eclipsed. Since Elon has established himself as the wealthiest man in the world, he has become more and more emboldened with fascist rhetoric and action. Ultimately, none of this would have been possible without the hyper-exploitation of African people under apartheid and the broader acceptance of fascist politics by Western imperialist powers like the U.S. and Canada.
The Haldeman and the Musk families were not the only supporters of formerly apartheid or fascist states to spread their wings and exert greater racist influence. There is no shortage of examples.
Another prominent example from South Africa is forensic physician David Fowler, who gained widespread condemnation after his testimony in defense of Derek Chauvin, the brutal racist cop who murdered George Floyd. Fowler left South Africa for Baltimore, Maryland, in 1991, just a year after the official end of apartheid. Apparently, the idea of practicing medicine in a country where the indigenous African population held political power did not appeal to an apartheid mad scientist.
Over the next two decades, Fowler would assist the Baltimore Police Department and the Maryland State Police in a large-scale cover-up of racist police murders, most notoriously the murder of 19-year-old Anton Black. Fowler’s career came under increased scrutiny after he testified that Derek Chauvin’s knee on George Floyd’s neck for almost 10 minutes was not the cause of Floyd’s death. For all those reasons, over 1,300 cases of individuals who died while in custody of Maryland police were reopened in 2021.
For the U.S., the most infamous reappropriation of Nazi officials was “Operation Paperclip,” which saw the CIA arrange for 1,600 German scientists, engineers, and technicians to secretly leave Germany and join the U.S. in the cold war against the Soviet Union. Many of these officials were high-ranking members of the Nazi party. Some experimented on Jewish prisoners. None of them were ever brought to justice.
Even Germany itself repurposed Nazi officials into what was known for most of the second half of the 20th century as “West Germany” or the “Federal Republic of Germany. In the mid-2010s, the current German government conducted a series of investigations into the prevalence of Nazi judges and other justice system officials in the West German government. The final report revealed that in 1957, 77% of senior officials at the justice ministry had been members of the Nazi party. A different study found that the justice department was not even a majority non-Nazi judges until 1972. The last Nazi official, a former prosecutor for Hitler, would not leave the German Ministry of Justice until 1992. The Times of Israel referred to this as “recycling Nazis.”
It is beyond telling that all these different imperialist countries and apartheid regimes have such deep problems with fascist infiltration. The fact is that the imperialist ruling class, some of whom, like Elon Musk, are fascists themselves, have historically used and continue to use the fascist mass movement to enforce their plunder of the planet.
The imperialist ruling class constantly tells the world that they are the bringers of democracy and civilization. They insist that their enemies are so savage and barbaric as to justify any force necessary to defeat them. Yet, some of the most powerful imperialists, such as the entire Musk family, are openly and proudly Nazis themselves. The supposed democratic Germany during the Cold War was chock-full of Nazi judges. One of the largest historically Black cities in the U.S. suffered under a recycled South African apartheid medical examiner for two decades.
New boss, same as the old boss.
The working people of the world don’t need Nazi billionaires, Nazi doctors, Nazi judges, or any Nazis at all. The working class needs jobs, land, food, water, health care, and education. Down with the imperialist ruling class. Down with Elon Musk.
Lev Koufax is an anti-Zionist Jewish activist.
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