Washington DC:
Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, on Sunday voiced strong concerns about the US government’s payment systems, revealing troubling ‘inefficiencies’ and potential ‘fraud’ worth over USD 100 billion every year.
In a post on X, Musk said that the Treasury Department and his Department of Government Efficiency have reached an agreement changing reporting requirements for all outgoing government payments.
To be clear, what the @DOGE team and @USTreasury have jointly agreed makes sense is the following:
– 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…
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 8, 2025
The government payments will now have a ‘payment categorization code’ for auditing purposes, he wrote in a post on X.
Highlighting key reforms that need to be implemented, he stated, “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!,” he added.
Further, Musk raised the implementation of the “DO-NOT-PAY list”, which identifies entities involved in fraudulent activities and called for the list to be updated at least weekly, if not daily.
“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,” he said.
“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!,” he added.
Pointing out to USD 100 billion/year to individuals with no Social Security Number (SSN) or temporary ID number, he called it “extremely suspicious.”
“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,” he said
“When I asked if anyone at Treasury had a rough guess for what percentage of that number is unequivocal and obvious fraud, the consensus in the room was about half, so USD 50B/year or USD1B/week!!,” he added.
He called the situation “insane” and urged for immediate action to address the problem of widespread fraud in the system.
The magnitude of the fraud in government payments (your tax dollars being spent) is MUCH higher than you think! https://t.co/umnT8Zm4Mb
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 8, 2025
“This is utterly insane and must be addressed immediately,” he said.
Sharing a chart on X, titled “Federal Government: Waste, Fraud, Abuse,” he wrote, “The magnitude of the fraud in government payments (your tax dollars being spent) is MUCH higher than you think!”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)