Elon Musk has announced a DOGE-led investigation into the personal fortunes of Democratic members of Congress during a town hall in Wisconsin, asking how lawmakers become millionaires while earning “$200,000 a year.”
The billionaire Trump ally declared an investigation into political opponents on Sunday night in response to a question from an attendee who asked whether the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) had discovered any direct “evidence” of money sent to “radical left Democrats” – naming Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), Senator Adam Schiff (D-CA), Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer – by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
In response to the question, Musk replied that he was trying to “figure it out”:
Yeah. So there is a massive amount of corruption. But it is circuitous. So what happens is there’s money that, obviously, it’s your taxpayer money that is then sent to various government organizations who then send it to NGOs, an NGO is a non-governmental organization, but obviously, if it’s a government-funded non-governmental organization, it’s just an organization. It’s just a government.
And effectively, there’s a giant fraud loophole, which is that the government can send money to an NGO that is then no longer governed by the laws of the United States. So they’ll send the money overseas to one NGO, then they’ll go through a bunch of them, and then I’m highly confident that a bunch of that money then comes back to the United States and lands in the pockets of the people you just mentioned.
But it is a circuitous route. It doesn’t go directly, but let’s just say that there’s a lot of strangely wealthy members of Congress where I’m trying to connect the dots of how do they become rich while earning… How do they get $20 million if they’re earning $200,000 a year? It sounds… Nobody can explain that. So something’s… Yeah, we’re going to try to figure it out and certainly stop it from happening.
Musk’s comments followed a post on X highlighting their collective estimated net worth of $439 million.
During his appearance, Musk also awarded two attendees $1 million checks, and declared “Say hi to George for me!” to a heckler — a swipe at investor George Soros.
He also doubled down on his push to flip Wisconsin’s Supreme Court conservative in the upcoming vote.
Critics say Musk’s offer of money in exchange for petition signatures brushes up against Wisconsin election laws. A last-minute court challenge failed hours before the event. Still, Musk’s team pivoted, claiming the giveaways were about “attention” and grassroots mobilization — not votes.
Watch above via C-SPAN.
