Elon Musk, along with his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team, reported that officials within the Treasury Department suspect that approximately $1 billion each week in entitlement payments are being diverted through “unequivocal and obvious fraud.” Despite facing lawsuits and strong opposition over his initiatives, Musk has pressed forward with President Donald Trump’s agenda to eliminate government waste and inefficiency.
The tech billionaire now asserts that he has uncovered multiple “extremely suspicious” activities within the U.S. Treasury. Musk shared these findings on his social media platform, X, on Saturday, clarifying, “To be clear, what the @DOGE team and @USTreasury have jointly agreed makes sense is the following:”
He went on to detail the following measures, emphasizing the need for reform: “- Require that all outgoing government payments have a payment categorization code, which is necessary in order to pass financial audits. This is frequently left blank, making audits almost impossible.” “- All payments must also include a rationale for the payment in the comment field, which is currently left blank. Importantly, we are not yet applying ANY judgment to this rationale, but simply requiring that SOME attempt be made to explain the payment more than NOTHING!” “- The DO-NOT-PAY list of entities known to be fraudulent or people who are dead or are probable fronts for terrorist organizations or do not match Congressional appropriations must actually be implemented and not ignored. Also, it can currently take up to a year to get on this list, which is far too long. This list should be updated at least weekly, if not daily,” Musk explained in his post.
Musk then stressed that these straightforward and essential changes are being implemented by long-time career government workers, not by anyone from DOGE. He expressed disbelief that such basic steps had not been taken sooner, saying, “The above super obvious and necessary changes are being implemented by existing, long-time career government employees, not anyone from @DOGE. It is ridiculous that these changes didn’t exist already!”
Musk also revealed a troubling figure, writing: “Yesterday, I was told that there are currently over $100B/year of entitlements payments to individuals with no SSN or even a temporary ID number. If accurate, this is extremely suspicious.” When Musk inquired about the possible fraud in these payments, he was told that the consensus was that about half of the $100 billion is likely “unequivocal and obvious fraud,” which translates to roughly $50 billion annually, or $1 billion a week. Musk called this revelation “utterly insane” and insisted it must be addressed immediately. “This is utterly insane and must be addressed immediately,” he reiterated.
In a follow-up post, Musk reflected on the previous lack of action, stating, “Nobody in Treasury management cared enough before. I do want to credit the working level people in Treasury who have wanted to do this for many years, but have been stopped by prior management.” He went on to criticize the approach taken by past Treasury leadership, noting, “Everything at Treasury was geared towards complain minimization. People we receive money don’t complain, but people who don’t receive money (especially fraudsters) complain very loudly, so the fraud was allowed to continue.”
On Friday, former President Donald Trump praised Musk and the DOGE team for uncovering significant issues, saying, “He’s finding tremendous fraud and corruption and waste. You see it with the USAID [U.S. Agency for International Development], but you’re going to see it even more so with other agencies and other parts of government.”
{Matzav.com}