Elon Musk reveals DOGE’s new target — members of Congress who got ‘strangely wealthy’

The world’s richest man is dying to figure out how lawmakers on Capitol Hill got “strangely wealthy” despite their comparatively modest public salaries.

Speaking at a town hall in Wisconsin Sunday night, Elon Musk suggested that his team at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) will investigate how certain members of Congress have achieved generational wealth.

One attendee at the town hall had asked Musk if DOGE had uncovered evidence of funds wired from the US Agency for International Development (USAID) to Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY).

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“They’ll [the government] send the money overseas to one NGO [non-governmental organization], 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,” Musk replied.

“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?'”

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Rank-and-file members of Congress make $174,000 annually. Last year, Musk — whose net worth is pegged at $330 billion by Bloomberg — helped kill legislation to raise congressional pay, then later supported an increase as a means of fighting corruption.

Scores of lawmakers who have spent decades in Congress are millionaires. 

Two of the wealthiest include former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who has a net worth of about $250 million, and Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), whose personal fortune hovers around $552 million.

Pelosi’s wealth largely comes from her and her venture capitalist husband Paul’s lucrative investments in companies like Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google and Netflix.

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Scott’s personal fortunes largely stem from his work co-founding HCA Healthcare, a company that runs hospitals and other medical facilities around Florida, and Solantic, an urgent-care clinic chain. His work on both of those companies predates his time in the Senate. 

“How do they get $20 million if they’re earning $200,000 a year?” Musk further pondered. “We’re going to try to figure it out and certainly stop it from happening.”

Musk swung through Wisconsin on Sunday to rally support for Brad Schimel, a conservative Waukesha County judge, in the closely watched election for the state Supreme Court.

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During his visit, Musk handed out $1 million checks to two Badger State voters. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO has encouraged Wisconsin residents to sign his petition against “activist judges” to get prize money.

“I should say that the reason for the checks is that it’s really just to get attention,” Musk explained about the prize money. 

“And somewhat inevitably, when I do these things, it causes the legacy media to kind of lose their minds.”

The Wisconsin Supreme Court race pits Schimel against Dane County Judge Susan Crawford, with the winner having outsize sway over issues such as state abortion laws and redistricting.

Control of the Wisconsin Supreme Court is seen as politically valuable given the ongoing battles between Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and the GOP-controlled state legislature.