Acting Head Of Social Security Steps Down In Major Shake-Up

The latest casualty of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), headed by entrepreneur Elon Musk, is the acting head of the Social Security Administration (SSA), Michelle King. King started with the SSA as a claims representative as her first "real" job in 1994. She gradually worked her way up to the top-dog leadership position in that organization, to which she was appointed in January 2025. Over the weekend, King announced that she's stepping down as acting director after clashing with DOGE over access to Americans' sensitive data.

For the unaware, DOGE is a temporary organization created by executive order under President Trump. Its goal is to identify and eliminate wasteful government spending and bring transparency to taxpayers as to how their hard earned dollars are being allocated. Cleverly, the acronym DOGE is a nod to Musk's favorite cryptocurrency, Dogecoin. DOGE has become immensely controversial since its inception, drawing nationwide protests after slashing jobs across various government agencies and gaining access to sensitive private data, although some politicians across the aisle including Bernie Sanders have supported various aspects of its stated mission.

Social Security, medicare, and medicaid are the United States largest annual expenditures, representing nearly half of the whole federal budget. By itself, Social Security represented approximately 24% of the fiscal year 2023 federal budget. This makes those institutions a prime target for Musk and his DOGE team, leading some Americans to worry whether Social Security will be cut, or even eliminated altogether. In DOGE's defense, President Trump has stated that there will be no cuts to Social Security benefits and that he intends to focus on efficient use of resources instead.

In order to accomplish its task, DOGE requested sensitive information from the SSA, including (obviously) social security numbers of the more than 70 million Americans that receive payments from the organization. As reported by CBS News, "officials from the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, had been trying to get access to the Enterprise Data Warehouse — a centralized database that serves as the main hub for personal, sensitive information related to social security benefits such as beneficiary records and earnings data." King was clearly opposed to granting this request and abruptly resigned.

It's worth mentioning that on February 16, Musk posted on his social media site X, famously changed from Twitter, that fraudulent activity has already been identified within SSA. In particular, more than 20 million people in the Social Security database are over 100 years old — some as old as 150 years old — which seems an unlikely high number. On the surface, this seems indicative that some deceased individuals are still collecting fraudulent social security checks — or they're vampires, jokes Musk. 

A White House spokesperson already announced that President Trump has nominated "the highly qualified and talented Frank Bisignano" as the new head of Social Security. However, Bisignano will first need to be vetted and confirmed by the U.S. Senate, a process that could take at least a few weeks. 

In the meantime and in the wake of King's resignation, "the agency will be led by a career Social Security anti-fraud expert as the acting commissioner," said Principal Deputy Press Secretary, Harrison Fields. Though not specifically named, that person has since been discovered to be Leland Dudek. Interestingly, Dudek leapfrogged several more senior executives to become the interim leader of the agency, causing further unrest within the SSA. It's been observed that Dudek previously posted pro-DOGE comments on his social media accounts, which have since been removed.