Elon Musk revealed in a post on X that millions of individuals in the Social Security database are listed as centenarians, with their “death field set to FALSE!” — suggesting there is a very large number of fraudulent claims being paid out every month. “According to the Social Security database, these are the numbers of people in each age bucket with the death field set to FALSE! Maybe Twilight is real, and there are a lot of vampires collecting Social Security,” Musk posted, adding a couple of rolling-on-the-floor laughing emojis.
Musk’s post includes a chart showing that over 20 million individuals in the Social Security database are recorded as being 100 years or older. The data indicates more than 3.9 million people listed in the 130-139 age range, over 3.5 million in the 140-149 range, and more than 1.3 million in the 150-159 range. While the 2020 U.S. Census recorded a total population of over 331 million, the number of individuals aged 100 and older was just over 80,000, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau.
“The logic flow diagram for the Social Security system looks INSANE. No one person actually knows how it works. The payment files that move between Social Security and Treasury have significant inconsistencies that are not reconciled. It’s wild,” Musk declared in a post on X. In another post, Musk said, “There are FAR more ‘eligible’ social security numbers than there are citizens in the USA. This might be the biggest fraud in history.”
The White House, meanwhile, is dismissing what it calls “another hoax” after media outlets and at least one congressional Democrat promoted allegations that the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was improperly releasing classified information.
The controversy began on Friday when the left-leaning HuffPost reported that DOGE, led by tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, had published classified information on its new website regarding the size and staffing of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). An unnamed Defense Intelligence Agency employee claimed DOGE had leaked “secret” data, causing officials to scramble to verify whether sensitive information had been accessed. Anonymous Senate aides asserted that the NRO’s staffing and budget details were classified to prevent foreign adversaries from exploiting them.
Upon initial publication, HuffPost quoted an NRO spokesperson deferring all questions to DOGE and noted that the White House had not responded to a request for comment. However, after publication, the article was updated with a denial from the White House. Despite this, other media outlets quickly picked up the story. The Daily Beast re-aggregated the report, while ABC News pursued the allegations further, citing intelligence community sources who claimed DOGE’s actions “likely” represented a major security breach. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) also amplified the accusations, the Daily Wire reported.
However, former House investigator and journalist Jerry Dunleavy debunked the claims in a series of posts on X, pointing out that the NRO headcount information is already publicly available on the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) website. Additionally, DOGE clearly states on its own site that its workforce data comes directly from OPM.
“DOGE even says under ‘Sources’ that it’s pulling its data from OPM’s publicly available data set as of March 2024,” he said. “OPM posted then NRO has 1,097 employees. DOGE posts now NRO has 1,097 employees. So… is the claim here that OPM has been publicly posting classified info for years?”
