For the second time, Elon Musk has put himself in the middle of a political and social debate. The tycoon and owner of X (formerly Twitter) dropped a bombshell that has left people in the US confused:
He says that millions of dead people are still getting Social Security benefits, which is a huge fraud. He said it straight out: “There is a whole generation of financial vampires who are draining the system without anyone doing anything.” Is this true? What do we know about this?
Earthquake in the federal authorities
Unfortunately, this statement has set off all the alarms in Washington. The Social Security Administration (SSA) and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have been told they need to look into the databases right away.
What does this really mean? Is it a scandal or just another part of Musk’s media war against the government?
What does Musk say?
Musk dropped the big secret in a post on his X profile on the 17th. According to the table, there was a link between the number of people in each age group who had checked the “Death” box in the database but it was not true.
Official numbers: a real problem?
The idea that millions of deceased people are still receiving Social Security checks is shocking, but it’s not new…
A report from the SSA’s Office of the Inspector General in 2023 revealed that there are 18.9 million Social Security numbers linked to people born in 1920 or earlier who have not been officially recorded as deceased, but are aware of it and before facing a problem of lack of control are disqualified from receiving any type of payment (logically)
In fact, according to this same report, of those 18.9 million unupdated records, only 44,000 people would be collecting benefits, which represents a relatively low number within the US pension system.
Who is investigating and what will be the consequences?
DOGE has said it will carefully look over the SSA database to see if there was any negligence. However, the investigation has also raised questions about whether sensitive information has been leaked, as some critics think Musk is abusing his power to get to private data without the right controls in place.
At the same time, Karoline Leavitt, the press secretary for President Trump’s administration, tried to calm things down by saying that the investigation would not affect the payments that retirees are already getting and that the only goal of the investigation was to make sure that public funds were not wasted.
But is there fraud or not?
As we already said, the answer is no. There was a misunderstanding. The SSA records a death in the master death file, but since the data was digitized, many people born before 1920 were left in “limbo.” They were not getting social security money or wasting public money; their death had just not been recorded.
What’s up with Musk and Social Security?
Several news outlets have reported that Musk’s DOGE has tried to access private Social Security data. The acting SSA commissioner resigned last weekend, which made the situation worse.
However, Musk is walking “a tightrope” because he has had several “beefs” with Social Security, so it would not be surprising if he is using this to hurt the administration’s reputation.
Trump’s press said that Musk was making people afraid because many seniors thought they were going to lose their social pension. They said that no one should be afraid of losing their payments because the businessman wants to look at the data.
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