‘Getting their money’s worth?’: Elon Musk accidentally shares socialist values over American healthcare system

What’s that smell? It smells like… borscht? And a freshly oiled AK-47? And what’s that other musty scent? Are those the pages of a vintage copy of Karl Marx’s Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei? That’s it! It smells like SOCIALISM. And it’s coming from… ELON MUSK!?

Elon Musk took to X blast that byzantine, bureaucratic nightmarescape known as the United States healthcare system. Citing America’s ludicrously high healthcare costs when compared to other countries, Musk posed a rhetorical that would have made Marx and Engels proud: “shouldn’t the American people be getting their money’s worth?” Yes, Elon. They should.

Is Elon Musk a socialist? According to the man himself, the answer is yes.

Sadly, the rest of this tweet dashes any of the hopes that the restless ghosts of Marx and Engels would have for a new 21st century protege. Musk isn’t the kind of socialist that advocates for shifting resources from the “most productive” to the “least productive.” I.e. from rich people to poor people – which is the literal ideological basis of socialism. That being said, if capitalism were socialism, Musk would be the second coming of Vladimir Lenin.

Despite accidentally espousing socialist values, Musk is not a socialist. At all. The internet was quick to call bullshit.

Despite Musk’s socialist call to arms, he supports a party that champions the privatization of healthcare. In fact, Trump’s recent win could spur the privatization the last bastion of healthcare available to low-income Americans: Medicare. I’m sorry Elon, but you really gotta pick a side here. If you’re gonna rock with the socialists, you can’t also rock with the guys threatening to tear apart the few social services that Americans have left. That’s like calling yourself goth while hating on Bauhaus. You just can’t have it both ways.

This user points out that the that healthcare system is simply one of the many ways that American citizens are financially screwed. If Elon Musk’s big idea about cutting 2 trillion dollars from the federal budget were ever to come to fruition, U.S. citizens would be screwed even more. Bobby Kogan, a senior director of federal budget policy for the Center for American Progress said that such a move would constitute a “thirty-three percent cut to every single program in the budget,” which includes a thirty-three percent cut to Social Security, Medicare and the few other safety nets currently available to Americans.

When paired with the policies of Elon Musk’s candidate of choice, his “socialist” self-claim becomes even more ludicrous. According to an analysis done by the Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy, Trump’s tax proposal would give tax breaks to the nation’s richest 5% bourgeois alone, while the rest of the proletariat will suffer tax hikes. Trump’s tariff plan is similarly damaging to the masses. His trade war-mongering with China and Mexico, countries where many U.S. goods are produced, will cause a rise in goods prices from major retailers across the nation. When asked about the tariffs, Walmart CFO John David Rainey warned that the policy will probably case “prices to go up” for consumers purchasing from the chain.

Despite Musk being a capitalist squirrel that managed to stumble across a socialist acorn, he’s got along way to go before he’s sent an RSVP for the communist party. Tough luck, comrade.