No reasonable person will disagree with the idea of targeting actual waste or fraud, but Musk’s half-trillion-dollar estimate is outlandish.

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The time for Americans to demand Elon Musk’s removal from the federal government is now, before his slash-and-burn nonsense and warped views of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid cause a spike in the sale of pitchforks.

In a recent interview on Fox Business, the federally funded billionaire Donald Trump put in charge of a made-up thing called the Department of Government Efficiency said: “The waste and fraud in entitlement spending, which is most of the federal spending, is entitlements, so that’s like the big one to eliminate, that’s the sort of half-trillion, maybe six or 700 billion a year.”

That garbled sentence is just the kind of clarity you want from an unelected rich guy who has taken a “break it first” mentality to the federal government. The most charitable interpretation of Musk’s comment is that he’s saying “waste and fraud” – a favorite blanket term for Republicans who want to get rid of programs that help people – need to be eliminated from programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

The ‘waste and fraud’ seems to be coming from Musk’s mouth

No reasonable person will disagree with targeting actual waste or fraud, but Musk’s half-trillion dollar estimate is outlandish. As The Associated Press reported: “Musk’s estimate for the level of fraud in entitlements far outpaces figures from watchdogs like Social Security’s inspector general, who previously said there was $71.8 billion in improper payments from fiscal years 2015 through 2022. That’s less than 1% of benefits paid out during that time period.”

So, to ballpark, that’s about $10 billion a year compared with Musk’s highest estimate of $700 billion a year.

The bottom line is this: He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. And he’s already demonstrated his animosity toward Social Security, calling it “the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time.”

If you have paid into Social Security, or if you rely on Social Security checks, or if you benefit from Medicare or Medicaid, the last thing you want is an ignorant billionaire who can’t comprehend budgeting on a fixed income using the word “eliminate” or the term “Ponzi scheme” around any of your federal programs.

Musk’s DOGE has been calamitous, and he’s just not a nice guy

The cuts and firings that have happened under Musk’s DOGE operation have already shown themselves to be ham-handed.

They’ve fired people who perform crucial jobs, then had to turn around and rehire them.

They’ve wildly overinflated the amount of money they claim they’re saving.

And this team of unknown techies has been fighting to get access to some of the most carefully guarded private data – YOUR data – the government holds.

On top of all this, Musk has proved himself time and again to be an absolute jerk.

In his Fox Business interview, he repeated the ludicrous white-nationalist lie that federal programs like Social Security are “a mechanism by which the Democrats attract and retain illegal immigrants, by essentially paying them to come here, and then turning them into voters.”

The “Democrats are importing voters” line is conspiratorial garbage, and the notion that undocumented immigrants are collecting Social Security is a long-ago debunked claim.

The purpose of Musk’s comment is simply to demonize immigrants and spread the insidious “great replacement theory.”

Musk calls combat veteran Sen. Mark Kelly a ‘traitor’

If you need additional proof of Musk’s oafishness, he recently labeled Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona a “traitor” on social media after the senator posted a photo of his recent visit to Ukraine.

As a U.S. Navy pilot, Kelly flew 39 combat missions in Operation Desert Storm. He’s also a former NASA astronaut.

Musk is a South African-born billionaire who routinely peddles conspiracy theories on the social media platform he bought and, most recently, ushered in the firing of tens of thousands of U.S. government workers.

Kelly is the opposite of a traitor. Musk is a poster boy for jerks.

If you trust him, you’re not paying attention. And if you value the so-called entitlements you’ve worked for, you’d be wise to join the other Americans loudly demanding that Musk be stripped of the power nobody ever voted to give him.

Follow USA TODAY columnist Rex Huppke on Bluesky at @rexhuppke.bsky.social and on Facebook at facebook.com/RexIsAJerk