While speaking to Newsmax host Rob Schmitt during the CPAC 2025, Elon Musk exposed that many people, some of them foreign actors, have been scamming the government and how these massive fraud rings have sent billions of dollars out of the country.
For reference, Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have been examining every element of the executive branch for fraud, and Musk has uncovered earth-shaking examples of theft and corruption during only a few short months in office. Amongst the scams so far discovered was theft of American tax dollars carried out by foreign fraud rings that Elon exposed at the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) 2025.
Regardless, Elon Musk blew the crowd at CPAC away by revealing how easy it was to steal from the government before DOGE. He said, “By the way, it’s really easy to take advantage of the federal government…It’s very easy. Look at COVID-19. Yes, everybody got rich during COVID-19…in terms of COVID payments, yeah, there was something like $200 billion of COVID payment fraud taken by forces out of the country.”
Musk dug deeper, explained that this isn’t helping Americans, joked about these fraud networks, and asked how nobody else had noticed the issue. The CEO added, “That’s like, I think, listen, there’s going to be fraud. It should at least be domestic, so, you know, but they managed to get $200 billion out of the country. I’m like, What didn’t we notice that?”
When the clip was posted to X on February 20, 2025, the same day it happened, users reacted with rage and confusion. One lengthy comment read, Elon Musk nails it: $200B in COVID fraud slipping out of the country? That’s not just a scandal—it’s a national embarrassment. Bureaucrats torch your cash, then call it “oversight.”’
The same account continued to offer a solution for the fraud. He said, “The real issue? D.C. agencies like SSA can’t even track who’s alive or dead, yet they’re trusted with trillions. Time to cut the waste, torch the slush funds, and put America First. Trump’s right—fraud should at least stay domestic.”
Another pointed out how government systems never should have allowed this to happen in the first place. The comment read, “The killer is they deigned the computer systems to allow this. In spite of every common standard to have programming checks to prevent fraud and out of bounds situations. They intentionally left out the accounting standards of the federal government. Yes they do have accounting standards. This is no accident. This was programmed to happen.”
Some readers expressed anger with how much effort the government is willing to spend collecting taxes while failing to investigate fraud. One comment read, “There’s something very Hypocritical and Evil about hiring 87,000 IRS agents to audit us down to $600, but now freak out when Elon and a tiny crew audits them, exposing 100s of $BILLIONS of government waste and corruption. Could it be any more obvious that the Democrats are criminals?” Other users agreed with Elon Musk that the whole situation was absurd. A reply read, “Elon is spot on! $200B in COVID fraud leaving the country is outrageous. The government throws money around with zero accountability. It’s time for a full investigation and real consequences. Taxpayers deserve better.”
Watch the clip here:
