A private equity investor who is one of the best confidants of Elon Musk has played a new role in the Social Security Administration, a development that could be politically flammable given the popularity of the program among the voters and the apparent intention of Mr. Musk to make major changes to the agency.
The investor, Antonio Gracias, who served on the boards of the Businesses Tesla and SpaceX of Mr. Musk, started a job at the administration as part of the cost -saving efforts guided by the Musk as the Department of Government efficiency, which were seen by the New York.
Of the more than 50 people who are at Mr. Have connected Musk in Washington, almost nobody have an equally extensive history with him as Mr. Gracias. The men met about two decades ago and at that time Mr Gracias became one of Mr. Musk's most trusted advisers.
The involvement of such an ally in the Social Security Administration suggests that Mr. Musk has refused the Agency for a priority; In recent weeks, the technical billionaire has regularly discussed supposed fraud in the system. Two weeks ago he referred to social security as 'the largest Ponzi schedule of all time', and this week he claimed that fraud in the program and other important expenses for rights 'was the great to eliminate'.
Republicans have privatization or cuts on long eyes to social security, but have avoided to follow for fear of political recoil. Even while Top Republicans claim that they simply want to strengthen the finances of the program, Democrats have spied a political opportunity in the potential commotion of Mr. Musk at the agency.
Nine doge members have arrived at the Social Security Administration in recent days. They include Mr Gracias and two other men who work at his investment company, Valor Equity Partners – Jon Koval, a vice -president of the investment team, and Payton Rehling, a data engineer – according to documents seen by The Times.
At the beginning of February, while with allies from Mr. Musk spoke on an episode of the Podcast 'All-in', Mr Gracias minimized his role in the cost-saving task force. “I am a bit in and out and try to help where I can, but I am not there full -time,” he said.
But he said that he and his team had examined Audits of the Social Security Administration at Valor and that he was alerted by the size of the so -called trust funds, government accounts created to ensure that Americans receive their full benefits. Mr Gracias said he believed that this showed that there were “material weaknesses” in the system.
The funds of the Social Security Trust grew for decades as Americans paid more taxes in the program than they took in benefits. Tax revenues submitted to the trust funds were not there; Instead, the federal government used the money to pay its regular expenses over time. In exchange, the treasury gave social security special bonds that it could redeem to help the program pay in the future.
Because Americans now accept more benefits than they pay in taxes, the social security has not been able to be purchased or sold the so-called trust funds that special bonds cashed in the public. In short, there is no real money in the trust funds.
The precise contours of the role of Mr Gracias, who was previously reported by Bloomberg News, are unknown. Neither Mr Gracias nor the Social Security Administration responded to requests for comments.
Mr. Gracias met Mr. Musk via David Sacks, a venture capitalist who is now a top official of Trump. He was an early advocate of Tesla and Mr. Musk personally led $ 1 million to the early days of the company, according to the testimony of Mr Gracias in a recent court case. The men and their families are on holiday in the Bahamas together and go skiing in Jackson Hole, Wyo.
While the career of Mr. Musk and the wealth bloomed, Mr Gracias, who bound his personal brand to the world -famous entrepreneur. Valor has invested in at least five of Mr. Musk's companies. When Mr. Musk bought the social media platform X in 2022, then known as Twitter, he tapped $ 44 billion, he tapped Mr Gracias to manage the finances of the transaction.
Mr Gracias, who moved from Chicago to Miami in 2021, spent time at the Private Mar-A-Lago Club of Donald J. Trump during the presidential transition and was one of the many of the friends of Mr. Musk who interviewed staff to become a member of the Trump administration. Mr Gracias said on “all-in” that he and Mr. Musk had surprised about the supposed inability of the government to follow the expenditure.
“I was on Mar-A-Lago with Elon who tried to get through: how does the money actually float?” he said. “Nobody could tell us how it actually flows. Where is it going? People didn't know. “
Mr Gracias, who graduated from the foreign service school of Georgetown, was in the capital of the country in January to accompany Mr. Musk to a dinner in the Elite Alfalfa Club, where he and Mr. Musk mixed with members of the political establishment.
Mr Gracias has undergone a political reinvention. He attended the presidential debate in September 2016 as in favor of Hillary Clinton and gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to the campaign of Joseph R. Biden Jr. In 2020. Now he largely supports Republicans: he gave millions to David McCormick during his 2022 and 2024 Senate runs in Pennsylvania and donated $ 1 million to Mr Musk's Pro-Trump Super Pac.
Sometimes the language of Mr Gracias has been more brutal than that of Mr. Musk. In the episode of the Podcast of February, he said that Mr. Musk's statement was that 10 percent of the federal budget was probably fraud “perhaps low”. He also claimed that the country flirted with becoming a “kleptocracy” and an “autocracy in Latin American style”.
He has described himself as a loyal supporter of the billionaire, regardless of the chase. “I am 100% with you Elon,” Mr Gracias wrote to Mr. Musk in an SMS message from March 2022 while fighting his fight to buy Twitter, as revealed in legal archives.
Andrew Duehren contributed reporting.
