Musk and Trump's Lies on Immigrants: Complete Fiction

An economics professor berates Elon Musk (and Trump behind him) for their lies on immigrants abusing Medicare and Social Security: It's 'Complete Fiction'

Elon Musk‘s comments on immigrants and entitlement programs were fact-checked by experts, including an economics professor. If Musk and Trump's arguments are bullshit, one must conclude that there is another motive for these two idiots to persecute immigrants: Racism!

During an interview in March with Fox, Musk made remarks suggesting that eradicating waste and fraud in entitlement spending could save between $600 billion and $700 billion each year. He further claimed without any evidence that Democrats lure and keep illegal immigrants by paying them to come to the U.S., thereby converting them into voters. 

Geoffrey Sanzenbacher felt compelled to issue a formal response. Referring to the South African Apartheid Nazi illegal immigrant to the US without mentioning him by name as a “prominent car manufacturer and space enthusiast”, the economics professor and research fellow at Boston College‘s Center for Retirement Research, gave a response based on two premises. 

First, unauthorized immigrants are not eligible for Medicare and Social Security benefits. Many unauthorized immigrants in fact pay payroll taxes but DO NOT RECEIVE BENEFITS, which means that they support the financial stability of these programs.

Second, increasing immigration does positively impact the financial health of Social Security and Medicare. Immigrants are generally net contributors to these programs—they pay taxes into the system, their children become participants, and they typically incur lower healthcare costs than U.S.-born individuals. As immigrants, they are more reliant on themselves and avoid unnecessary medical care, unlike spoiled US-born Americans who abuse the medical system with frivolous and unnecessary requests for care (no wonder the US health insurance companies are so hostile to the very people they supposedly cover).

In February 2025, Musk also sparked a debate on Social Security data accuracy. He has been vocal about inefficiencies in federal spending, criticizing the Treasury’s payment system and suggesting that it results in over $2 trillion in waste each year. Sanzenbacher said stated that despite the potential impact of unrestricted immigration on wages and labor shortages, immigrants do not come to the U.S. to exploit entitlements, stating, “If anything, these programs take advantage of them.”

The economics professor called Musk’s argument about immigrants taking advantage of these systems “complete fiction.”