Elon Musk's Latest Claim About Social Security Isn't Based In Fact

Elon Musk, the head of the Department of Government Efficiency, aka DOGE, has made a number of claims that are both controversial and questionable. For starters, Musk's troubling details about Social Security led him to claim that Social Security is nothing but a massive, fraudulent Ponzi scheme. This was accompanied by the assumption that Social Security employees somehow skim money off the top. These assumptions are questionable not only because Social Security doesn't generate a profit, but also because all transactions are subject to oversight mechanisms and even regular audits. While this oversight has discovered the occasional discrepancy, this represents about 1% of all benefits transactions.

This brings us to Musk's most recent claims, namely that a number of Americans, specifically beneficiaries over 115 years old and under 18 years of age, are receiving Social Security benefits. In addition, DOGE claimed on X, formally known as Twitter that $333 million worth of Small Business Administration loans went to borrowers who were over 115 years old – but listed as alive through Social Security — in 2020-2021. DOGE also claimed that there were 3.2 million deceased people on Social Security's rolls. Despite these claims, and Musk's support for them, they are likely inaccurate.

In a podcast on NPR, the former head of the Social Security Administration, Michael Astrue, had some thoughts to share about Musk's recent assertions. According to Astrue, part of the problem is actually Musk's twenty-something team of DOGE employees. One of whom was even fired from a former place of employment for leaking internal information. Another DOGE staffer, Marko Elez, who resigned from his position at DOGE after a social media account with a series of racist posts were discovered online — he's since been rehired by Musk.

In the podcast, Astrue claims that the DOGE team didn't understand the code they were seeing in the SSA's Numerical Identification file system (Numident) — which includes death records. Astrue asserts that only 50,000 people that are over 100 years old receive benefits, and that there are actually more people in that age cohort that don't receive benefits. However, the lack of experience among DOGE staffers — as well as a lack of understanding when it comes to interpreting the code used — have led to recent misinterpretations. With that said, Astrue added that DOGE staff weren't really at fault in this situation, "you can fault Elon Musk because instead of admitting error, he doubled down and had the president of the United States make that claim."

Although an audit in 2023 found that 18.9 million Americans in the database were recorded as being 100 years old and up — which didn't align with Census Bureau data listing 86,000 — 18.4 million of those supposed beneficiaries hadn't received benefits in 50 years. In fact, only 44,000 of those individuals were still receiving benefits. Of that, only 13 were recorded as being over 112 years old. Obviously, this is a far lower number than Elon Musk, or DOGE, has claimed — and is much more in line with Michael Astrue's claim that only around 50,000 people over 100 years of age are still collecting benefits. It's also not too far off from the one percent of improper payments found in the Social Security Administration between 2015 and 2022.

That being the case, it seems mathematically impossible that over $300 million were lost through fraud or program error. In fact, a March 2025 statement by the Social Security Administration seems to refute DOGE's claims by assuring the pubic that, "The data reported in the media represent people who do not have a date of death associated with their record." Since Musk has promised to return wasted money found by DOGE back to the U.S. taxpayer through so called DOGE stimulus checks – consumers might want to pay special attention to where, exactly, DOGE is taking its money from. Especially as DOGE shuts down dozens of Social Security offices around the country.