The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has made the biggest discovery yet, Elon Musk just announced Thursday — and it was “so crazy that I had to read it several times before it sank in.”
DOGE just discovered hundreds of millions of dollars in fraudulent unemployment claims, including millions in payments to people who haven’t even been born yet.
DOGE released findings from an initial survey of unemployment insurance claims since 2020, revealing that 9,700 people with birth dates more than 15 years in the future claimed $69 million in benefits.
“Your tax dollars were going to pay fraudulent unemployment claims for fake people born in the future!” Musk wrote on X. “This is so crazy that I had to read it several times before it sank in.”
In one case highlighted by DOGE, a claimant with a birthday listed in the year 2154 received $41,000 in benefits.
The survey also found 24,500 people over 115 years old claimed $59 million, while 28,000 children between ages 1 and 5 allegedly collected $254 million in benefits.
“The oldest living American is 114 years old, so it is safe to say that anyone 115 or older is collecting ‘unemployment’ due to being dead,” Musk noted in another post. “There was no sanity check for impossibly young or impossibly old people for unemployment insurance.”
An initial survey of Unemployment Insurance claims since 2020 revealed the following:
– 24.5k people over 115 years old claimed $59M in benefits
– 28k people between 1 and 5 years old claimed $254M in benefits
– 9.7k people with birth dates over 15 years in the future claimed…— Department of Government Efficiency (@DOGE) April 10, 2025
Department of Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer confirmed the findings in a statement to Fox News.
“This is another incredible discovery by the DOGE team, finding nearly $400 million in fraudulent unemployment payments. The Labor Department is committed to recovering Americans’ stolen tax dollars. We will catch these thieves and keep working to root out egregious fraud — accountability is here,” she said.
Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah called the findings further evidence of the federal government’s “reckless incompetence.”
Musk was appointed by President Trump to lead DOGE’s efforts to cut wasteful spending and uncover fraud in the federal government. Musk will resign from his position in last May.
This unemployment discovery comes after Musk shared data in February showing millions of dead Americans still eligible for social security payments.
The unemployment findings represent just one part of DOGE’s broader investigation into government waste. The agency recently terminated 108 “wasteful” contracts, including an “executive transformational leadership training program.” DOGE also crashed the Social Security Administration website during what was described as an “anti-fraud upgrade.”
The report did not specify which programs contained the fraudulent claims or how they were able to pass through existing verification systems. However, the findings suggest significant gaps in the verification process for unemployment benefits distributed since 2020.