With the use of DOGE leader Elon Musk's algorithms and data collection techniques, the Social Security Administration has been able to remove 12.3 million people whose birth dates say they are over 120 years old from the rolls, preventing fraud and abuse at the agency.
DOGE posted about the accomplishment on X on Friday.
After 11 weeks, @SocialSecurity has finished this major cleanup initiative: ~12.3M individuals aged 120+ have now been marked as deceased.
Some complex cases remain, such as individuals with 2+ different birth dates on file. These will be investigated in a follow-up effort. https://t.co/u942yTxlsG pic.twitter.com/DaXyqx5e4k
— Department of Government Efficiency (@DOGE) May 23, 2025
"After 11 weeks, @SocialSecurity has finished this major cleanup initiative: ~12.3M individuals aged 120+ have now been marked as deceased," the agency wrote.
The initiative began in March. It was not clear whether any money was going to the 120+ year individuals on the list, but just them being included could lead to fraud if hackers got ahold of their information.
There were some names that still had to be verified, as they had two or more differing birth dates in the system.
Musk also said in March that 2.1 million non-citizens were issued Social Security numbers in 2024, which should never have happened.
Longtime friend of Musk, Antonio Gracias, CEO of Valor Equity Partners, suggested at the time that the numbers were issued during a Biden-era program that allowed migrants into the U.S. and provided them access to Social Security numbers.
“When you come in the country, if you’re illegal, there’s a couple of ways to come in. You can come in through a port of entry and you can tell them you’re afraid and they’ll give you an asylum case, you’ll get an interview, then you get in. That’s one way to do it. Another way to do it is to just go to the border … walk up to a border patrol officer and you tell them you want to come in,” Gracias said.
“Once you’re in the country and you got an asylum through one of these pathways, you can apply for a work document. You file a 765, you get this form called a 766, and then the social security administration automatically sends you in the mail a social security number. No interview. No ID,” he concluded.
Obviously, this should not be happening in any way, shape or form.
Once an illegal immigrant has a social security number, they will be able to apply for things like section 8 housing and SNAP benefits.
They will also be able to get jobs legally.
It's possible that the previous administration justified this because the government could make tax revenue from it, but the tradeoff is not even close to fair in the long run.
