Elon Musk is offering to pay the salaries of US airport security guards. The billionaire's ad
Agents in charge of security checks at airports in the United States have been working without pay since mid-February because the department's funding is frozen, according to France Presse. On Saturday, Elon Musk offered to pay their salaries during the crisis.
“I would like to offer to pay the salaries of (Transportation Security Agency) TSA employees during the budget impasse that is negatively affecting the lives of so many Americans at airports across the country,” the American billionaire wrote on the social media platform he owns, X, according to Agerpres.
Partial “shutdown” in the US
Funding for the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been frozen since February 14, as a result of the conflict between Democrats and Republicans in Congress over the practices of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE).
Thus, thousands of federal employees at DHS were placed on technical unemployment. Essential staff, including airport security guards, continue to work.
In total, this partial shutdown affects about 50,000 TSA employees. They are no longer paid in full since March 13.
Salaries will be paid, for some and others, only when Congress reaches a consensus on the budget for DHS, on which ICE also depends.
Various estimates place the average annual salary of TSA agents between $50,000 and $60,000.
Partial budget paralysis has led to increased absenteeism in their ranks. While some have gone to work elsewhere until a consensus is reached in Congress, others have resigned.
Under these conditions, queues at American airports have become longer, and some passengers are waiting for hours to go through control.
Musk is the richest man in the world
With a fortune estimated at 839 billion dollars by the annual ranking published by Forbes on March 10, Elon Musk is the richest person in the world. Last year he had a fortune of 342 billion dollars.
“My net worth is almost entirely from Tesla and SpaceX,” Musk said in an X post in February, adding that “less than 0.1% of that is in cash.”
