Elon Musk has made a number of exaggerated or inevitable claims during an oval office event with President Donald Trump.

The Milliard, who made his first major media appearance since he began his role as head of the government’s efficiency department (Dogge), said his team was trying to improve the openness of the government.

But he gave no evidence when he commented on corruption in authorities and also defended false accusations that he had spread about US funds used to send condoms to Gaza.

BBC Verify has reviewed these claims from Musk.

Musk was challenged by a reporter about a recent white house requirement, which he has repeated, that it had stopped $ 50 million ($ 40.2 million) of condoms sent to the Gaza Strip.

The reporter asked if the condoms would actually be sent to the Gaza Province in Mozambique.

Musk seemed to admit that this might be the case and replied: “I’m not sure we should send $ 50 million on condoms somewhere … If it went to Mozambique instead of Gaza, I’m like, OK it’s not as bad, But still do you know why do we do it? ”

Several posts on X have emphasized an American commitment to finance an HIV prevention program in Gaza, Mozambique.

US government register shows that A US -funded schedule for GazaMozambique was awarded $ 83.5 million for “prevention, care, support and treatment interventions within HIV and TB facilities and communities” for a program that runs until September 2026.

BBC Verify contacted the AID agency that granted funding – Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation (EGPAF) – who told us that no money has been used to obtain condoms.

The US Foreign Ministry said that two donations of $ 50 million to be sent to the Gaza Strip via the International Medical Corps had been stopped, which it claimed included contraceptives such as condoms.

But in response to the claims, the charity said that it was not aware of any future US funding for condoms or other contraception for Gaza.

They also said that none of the funds they had received from the US government since October 2023 had been used to obtain or distribute condoms within the Gaza Strip.

The United States has previously provided contraception to countries around the world as part of family planning programs.

By 2023, the financial year (October 1 – September 30) was sent $ 60.8 million abroad for contraception – with about $ 7 million of it for condoms – according to a USAID report. None of this was listed for Gaza in the Middle East. $ 5.4 million contraceptives were listed for Mozambique, but none of this was for condoms.

These preventive programs were also available under Trump’s previous administration. During the 2019 financial year, for example, approximately $ 40 million was spent sending contraceptives abroad, according to another USAID report.

Although he did not mention her by name, Elon Musk seemed to refer to former USAID administrator Samantha Power’s alleged net value.

President Trump asked Musk to “mention some of the things your team has found some of the crazy numbers, including the woman who passed away with about 30 million.”

There have been claims on social media about Power net value to increase to this amount during her time on USAID.

A post claims: “Ex -Useid Chief Samantha Powers Net Venth Skyrokens – from $ 6.7 to $ 30 million on a salary of $ 180,000 … where did the extra $ 23.3 million from? And all this in just 3 year!”

Musk responded to another post on X about Power’s work on USAID and asked “How did she gather wealth that is 100 times her after the tax wage?”

Musk responded to Trump’s prompt to Oval Office by saying: “There are a lot of people in the bureaucracy who seem to be a salary of a few hundred thousand dollars but somehow managed to collect tiot of millions of dollars in net value while in that position , which is, you know what happened to USAID.

“Maybe they are very good at investing … I think the reality is that they get rich at the taxpayers’ expense.”

Power’s disadvantages have not provided any evidence of a sudden increase in her wealth or that she was favored by her role on USAID in addition to her salary.

The claim seems to come from a website called Inside Biden’s basement, which estimated that Samantha Power was worth between $ 10 and $ 30 million.

There is no division of the figure or methodology, but that includes three of Power’s government ethics forms from 2021-22.

These forms show Power’s income from various sources, including her teaching salary, investments, payments to speak commitment and book royalties.

Most of these figures are published within an interval, such as shares in a particular company worth between $ 15,000 and $ 50,000 or a bank account containing between $ 1 million and $ 5 million. As such, the result area is returned when the estimate of Power’s wealth is broad.

BBC Verify has added income and investments from the form that power was submitted before she was answered As administrator in 2021, where her wealth and income come out between about $ 9 million and $ 22 million.

The latest information form available on the government website gives her accounts for 2023 and is problematic because it provides an account containing “over $ 1 million” without specifying an upper limit. If you take it as between $ 1 million and $ 5 million in line with her other items, you get a total range of $ 9 to $ 25 million.

In line with the archiving rules, the 2021 figure includes her salary of $ 461,167 from her previous job at Harvard, while the latest figures do not include her salary of $ 183 100 from USAID.

So from her published accounts, it seems that she was quite rich before she started working on USAID and it has not changed much, even if it works within very wide intervals.

BBC Verify approached Samantha Power for comment through its official website.

Social security provides a basic income for people in the United States who are either retired or cannot work due to disability. It covers about 67 million Americans.

When it comes to the program, Musk said: “There are crazy things … Cross investigation of social security, and we have people there who are 150 years old.” He did not provide evidence of this.

BBC Verify has not been able to find specific evidence of the claim – even if we do not have access to all US social insurance data that MUSK has been granted.

“I think they are probably dead … and then there are a whole lot of social security payments where there is no identifying information,” Musk added.

There have been previous reports that have identified tens of billions of dollars fraud in social security payments-but we have not found any specific evidence that 150-year-olds claim benefits.

There is a report from 2023 from Social Security Inspector General who identified about 19 million people born in 1920 or earlier who had no death data in file – of which 44,000 were still receiving social insurance benefits.

The report triggered calls to better maintain applicant posts, after the Social Security Administration in 2021 estimated that about 24,000 people received payments from the agency after death, which amounted to almost $ 300 million.

It was an estimated 101,000 people over 100 in 2024 in the entire US, According to Pew Research Centerof which most people can expect to gain social security given that it covers retired persons.

Speaking of the government’s inefficiency, Musk argued that only 10,000 federal employees could retire per month because the paperwork is written down manually and stored in a mine.

He said: “The limiting factor is the speed with which the mine can move determines how many people can retire from the federal government, and the elevator sometimes breaks down, and then no one can retire.”

On the same day, Musk’s department published on the mine at X.

“Federal employees’ retirement is treated with paper, by hand, in an old limestone mine in Pennsylvania. 700+ miners drive 230 feet underground to process ~ 10,000 applications per month, stored in Manila envelopes and cartons. The retirement process takes several months. “

Musk refers to Iron Mountain, a storage facility with high security in Pennsylvania that holds government documents in a previous limestone mine.

An article from Washington Post 2014 reported that pension paper at the plant was treated “completely by hand and almost completely on paper”.

Recently, an audit report in 2019 found that between 2014 and 2017, the Office of Personal Management (OPM) – which handles the federal pension program – did not meet its goal of dealing with most pension applications within 60 days.

The report said that one of the reasons for this was OPM’s “continued dependence on paper applications and manual processing”. Insufficient staffing and incomplete applications were the other reasons for processing delays.

It did not mention problems with the storage facility or lifts.

The number of claims treated for civil service and federal employees’ pensioners rarely exceeds 10,000 per month, according to US government data. These figures also show that cases can take several months to treat.

BBC Verify has contacted OPM about Musk’s claims.

Further reporting of Joshua Cheetham and Anthony Reuben