If you’re one of the unfortunately people who is trying to fly somewhere this month than you already know that airports are a mess. Yesterday the Washington Post published a story headlined, “TSA lines are miserably long. Don’t miss your flight because of them.”
On Tuesday, a sign at a TSA security checkpoint at Miami International Airport said the wait time was 18 minutes. It lied.
Taryn and Ryan Hart, a Dallas couple returning from Lima, Peru, stood in line for nearly two hours. To distract themselves, they counted the people ahead of them — hundreds, Taryn said — and tried to determine whether they would make their 7 a.m. flight home…
Five weeks into the partial government shutdown, the lines at airport security checkpoints across the country are longer, slower and more woeful. The strain on Transportation Security Administration officers, who missed their first paycheck this week, means fewer open lanes and a smaller cadre of employees staffing the checkpoints. While passengers wait to clear security, their boarding times come and go and their planes lift off — without them.
Reading about it is one thing but just look at this video from LaGuardia airport and imagine being in that line.
BREAKING: Massive TSA LINES at LGA LaGuardia Airport in Queens Stretch to Parking Lot – NYC
Video by Dakota Santiago | Licensing @FreedomNTV [email protected] pic.twitter.com/nDUnE0grg3
— Oliya Scootercaster 🛴 (@ScooterCasterNY) March 20, 2026
In short, it’s a big mess out there thanks to the partial government shutdown. Democrats refuse to pass the DHS funding bill because they have demands about the funding of ICE.
It seems to be dawning on Democrats this week that the long lines at airports are probably not making people happy and that many of them will eventually connect that unhappiness to the people who stopped paying TSA. Axios reported this earlier in the week:
Democrats are feeling the heat as federal workers miss paychecks and DHS warns of airport closures. They hope their planned discharge petition will, at the very least, deflect blame onto Republicans.
Many lawmakers also question whether keeping the agency shut down is meaningfully incentivizing the White House to negotiate in good faith on immigration enforcement reforms.
“It’s not forcing any change,” said Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.). “In the meantime, we’re making people hurt. The long lines, that can’t make us more popular.”
Today, Elon Musk entered the conversation with an offer to pay the salaries of all of those TSA workers.
I would like to offer to pay the salaries of TSA personnel during this funding impasse that is negatively affecting the lives of so many Americans at airports throughout the country
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 21, 2026
Sen. Fetterman praised the idea:
This is incredibly generous.
TSA agents across the country are relying on food pantries and community donations just to get by.
I remain the lone Dem to vote with my Republican colleagues to fully fund DHS and get people paid.
It should never come to this point. https://t.co/MmUnAcdvIa
— U.S. Senator John Fetterman (@SenFettermanPA) March 21, 2026
Lots of praise for making the offer.
Elon is a true patriot. Let’s hope and pray our laws allow it. https://t.co/2LKfZCoAMA
— Senator Ron Johnson (@SenRonJohnson) March 21, 2026
Thank you, @elonmusk for stepping up to help hardworking TSA personnel while Democrats refuse to pay them.
It’s heartbreaking to see these families suffer because they’re a pawn in Dems’ games. https://t.co/3eOJZEIg4L
— Rick Scott (@SenRickScott) March 21, 2026
Elon is a great patriot https://t.co/9NiQLKqbUE
— Senator John Cornyn (@JohnCornyn) March 21, 2026
There’s a lot more like this. One of the most common responses I see is “Legend.” So could he do it? Well, it would be quite expensive but also very possible for Musk.
Based on TSA’s headcount, Musk paying officer salaries could run more than $40 million a week, a rounding error for the world’s richest person.
I don’t know for certain but Musk probably doesn’t have that kind of money just laying around in cash. His money is tied up in ownership of his very successful companies. It’s not sitting in a bank waiting for him to write a $40 million check every week. But that aside, he could make this happen.
Whether it would be legal or not is another matter. There are a bunch of stories about Musk’s offer and all of them basically say that it’s not clear if this would be possible. For instance, from Newsweek:
…it’s unclear if it’s legal for Musk to do this as federal law generally prohibits government employees from receiving outside compensation related to their official duties.
So Elon probably couldn’t legally pay their salaries directly and the fact that DHS is unfunded by congress (thanks Democrats!) probably means his money couldn’t be directed to them even if he made a block donation. In short, congress has the power of the purse and Democrats won’t allow any money to be spent on TSA at the moment.
Nevertheless, the idea was popular. Benny Johnson happened to be in the airport this morning and announced the news at the TSA checkpoint. He said a cheer when up.
I just informed dozens of TSA workers that @elonmusk offered to pay their salary during the Democrats Shutdown.
The whole terminal cheered. Passengers too.
Multiple TSA agents read the post live in disbelief.
One agent was so moved, he asked me to record this message to Elon… pic.twitter.com/NZX7CAmyIs
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) March 21, 2026
President Trump presented his own solution to the TSA problem this morning. Democrats really aren’t going to like this:
If the Radical Left Democrats don’t immediately sign an agreement to let our Country, in particular, our Airports, be FREE and SAFE again, I will move our brilliant and patriotic ICE Agents to the Airports where they will do Security like no one has ever seen before, including the immediate arrest of all Illegal Immigrants who have come into our Country, with heavy emphasis on those from Somalia, who have totally destroyed, with the approval of a corrupt Governor, Attorney General, and Congresswoman, Ilhan Omar, the once Great State of Minnesota. I look forward to seeing ICE in action at our Airports. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! President DONALD J. TRUMP
Democrats are going to cave on this shutdown pretty soon. The only reason they haven’t yet, as I see it, is that the war in Iran is sucking up all the oxygen in the room and dominating the headlines. As a result, the Democrat-caused disaster at US airports is effectively on the back burner in comparison.
