Elon Musk says he would “like to offer” to pay TSA workers’ salaries

Elon Musk “would like to offer to pay the salaries” of struggling TSA workers during the shutdown, he said Saturday on his social media site. I would also like to offer to pay them, if it happens. The difference is that I can’t, but Elon Musk’s net worth is a dollar amount beyond calculable, and without any impact on his personal well-being, he could easily move some assets and come up with enough liquid cash to make it happen.

But again, Musk “would like to offer” to pay them. He didn’t say, “I offer to pay you,” or better yet, “I’ve already paid you.”

I would like to offer to pay the salaries of TSA staff during this financial impasse that is negatively impacting the lives of so many Americans at airports across the country.

– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 21, 2026

Maybe it will. We at Gizmodo don’t know the future. It would be a relief if you did.

For the second time in as many years, TSA agents are being asked to work for free until congressional action unlocks their paychecks. According to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy“A TSA agent doesn’t make the most money … and they’re paying rent and trying to put food on the table. They can’t really make ends meet during this time.”

In the fall, TSA workers resisted during the Longest government shutdown in US history (43 days) but now 376 have resigned. since this Homeland Security shutdown began on February 14.

This clearly upsets the president, who wrote in Truth Social on Saturday that it will send Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to work in place of the TSA next Monday. in a separate post, wrote“I will deploy our brilliant and patriotic ICE agents to airports where they will provide security like never before, including the immediate arrest of all illegal immigrants who have entered our country, with special emphasis on those from Somalia.”

Between these two imperfect plans, the one where the billionaire steps in and pays people’s salaries is easily the more palatable. Unfortunately, there are good reasons not to trust Elon Musk to necessarily pay TSA agent salaries anytime soon, simply because he says he’d like to offer to do so.

What at first appears to be an expression of generosity often turns out to be just Musk making some odd comment. For example, in 2018 it offered to pay for home water filtration systems for all Flint residents who met a certain set of lead contamination parameters. They just had to Reply on Twitter or send an email to an email address and attach your lead test results.. It’s unclear if anyone qualified for a Musk filtration system, and later, he donated just under half a million dollars for water systems at Flint school fountains. That’s cool and all, but he It certainly didn’t resolve public distrust in Flint.‘water that he was trying to make a point about all the time.

Then in 2021, he said that if the World Food Program could “describe in (a) Twitter thread exactly how $6 billion will solve world hunger,” he would sell Tesla shares to fund that plan.

If the WFP can describe in this Twitter thread exactly how $6 billion will solve world hunger, I’ll sell Tesla stock right now and do it.

– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 31, 2021

Cindy McCain, as director of the World Food Program tweeted to 1,000 word plan towards him, but apparently that plan was not up to par. Apparently, Musk was not making a genuine offer to try to end world hunger. Instead, he was Highlighting transparency at the World Food Program. In any case, there is still hunger in the world, and part of it It was probably caused indirectly by Elon Musk’s actions.according to ProPublica.

So, is Elon Musk going to pay TSA workers? Maybe and maybe not. If so, you may want to go offline and just start writing checks.