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Elon Musk claims FEMA sent $59M last week to luxury NYC hotels for illegal migrants — but City Hall says there’s more to the story

February 11, 2025

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Elon Musk threatened to claw back $59 million he said the Federal Emergency Management Agency sent “last week to luxury hotels in New York City to house illegal migrants” – a claim that City Hall officials rebutted Monday.

The world’s richest man said in an early morning post on X that the funds were “just discovered” by his Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE– even as President Trump called for a complete overhaul of FEMA that could even see it shuttered.

Trump last month signed an executive order to create a council to review FEMA as he expressed concerns over “serious concerns of political bias” in the agency.

Musk’s threat could put Mayor Eric Adams in an awkward position, as Hizzoner has desperately pleaded for funding help from the federal government during the years-long migrant crisis that has cost the city $7 billion.

“Sending this money violated the law and is in gross insubordination to the President’s executive order,” Musk wrote.

“That money is meant for American disaster relief and instead is being spent on high-end hotels for illegals,” continued Musk, who leads the agency tasked with cutting back on government overspending.

“A clawback demand will be made today to recoup those funds.”

City Hall officials told The Post that no one has reached out to action on Musk’s demand.

They also issued a statement refuting Musk’s assertions that carefully avoided naming the mercurial billionaire or explicitly saying he was dead wrong.

The hands-off approach to Musk coincided with Adams convening a meeting of his top commissioners to tell them to avoid criticizing Trump in order to avoid putting billions in federal funds for the city at risk, The Post learned.

Only $19 million of the $59 million that Musk highlighted in his tweet will go toward housing migrants in hotels, luxury or otherwise, officials said.

“We have already spent over $7 billion on this crisis alone, and the previous administration committed only $237 million in funding to help house the migrants in our care and for future services,” the City Hall statement reads.

“We have continued to receive previously allocated reimbursements through the past week. We will discuss this matter directly with federal officials.”

Many of Musk’s claims couldn’t immediately be confirmed as the brash Tesla mogul didn’t disclose details about the money in his incendiary screed, which he coupled with a tweet endorsing the firing of FEMA officials who OK’d the funds.

The @DOGE team just discovered that FEMA sent $59M LAST WEEK to luxury hotels in New York City to house illegal migrants.

Sending this money violated the law and is in gross insubordination to the President’s executive order.

That money is meant for American disaster relief…

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 10, 2025

The city has never paid luxury hotel rates for housing migrants and pointed out the money is not a disaster relief grant, officials said.

And the vast majority of the roughly 200 makeshift shelters that housed asylum seekers during the crisis weren’t luxury hotels, with the eye-grabbing exceptions being the swanky Row Hotel and Watson Hotel.

The years-long migrant crisis has so far cost Gotham $7 billion, Mayor Eric Adams has said, often lamenting the relative pittance offered by the federal government for what he argues is a national failure.

The city expects roughly $237 million will eventually be ponied up by the feds, but only $81 million of that was paid as of last week, officials told The Post.

Those officials modified the city budget in November to account for $118 million in new FEMA funding through the Shelter and Services Program, a federal program that reimburses certain migrant housing costs in 35 communities in states affected by the border crisis.

Congress set aside $650 million for the overall program, and New York City applied for funds in 2024, federal records show. Customs and Border Patrol works with FEMA to disburse the money allocated by Congress.

The Big Apple ultimately was granted $59 million last year, which corresponds with the FEMA payment that Musk claimed is illegal, records show.

The grant won’t all go toward hotels, instead the majority will be spent on reimbursing other services the city shouldered as it cared for hundreds of thousands of migrants requiring food, health care and other needs as they flowed into the city, officials said.

Roughly $26 million of that FEMA grant will go toward food, security and other services, with another $13 million going toward congregate shelters, according to city officials.

Those reimbursed expenses are from the city’s costs from dealing with the migrant crisis between November 2023 and October, officials said.

Musk and his DOGE has taken a wrecking ball approach to their mission, which critics have argued is unconstitutional.

Within FEMA, his small team – which doesn’t have a security clearance – has gained access to the agency’s network containing private information of tens of thousands of disaster victims, the Washington Post reported.

The scrutiny on FEMA follows Trump’s high-profile criticism of the agency, which resulted in his executive order.

The 47th president called on the council to have its first meeting within 90 days — saying he expects a report of the findings on his desk within 180 days of the council’s first meeting.

Days earlier, Trump, 78, appeared alongside still-homeless survivors of Hurricane Helene four months after the storm where he raised the idea of overhauling FEMA altogether.

The POTUS slammed the performance of the agency, saying it was “not on the ball … and we’re going to turn it all around.”

The president then told a roundtable of federal and local officials that he will be “signing an executive order to begin the process of fundamentally reforming and overhauling FEMA — or maybe getting rid of FEMA. I think, frankly, that FEMA’s not good.”

Indeed, the president stayed true to his word.

He also accused the agency — which is responsible for bringing in emergency services, supplies and aid to disaster-struck areas — of bungling emergency relief efforts, adding that US states should be given federal handouts directly in the wake of disasters.

Over the past couple of years, funding for the agency has soared following several high-profile weather-related disasters around the country.