Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency made a stunning announcement Tuesday, revealing that more than 12 million people over age 120 were listed as alive in Social Security databases — including 1.3 million supposedly aged 150-159.
“For the past two weeks, @SocialSecurity has begun a major cleanup of their records,” DOGE announced on X. “Approximately 3.2 million numberholders, all listed age 120+, have now been marked as deceased. More work still to be done.”
The billionaire Tesla CEO’s government efficiency team released shocking breakdowns of the supposedly living super-centenarians —
- 3,467,066 people aged 120-129
- 3,929,750 people aged 130-139
- 3,548,746 people aged 140-149
- 1,357,967 people aged 150-159
Take a look —
For the past two weeks, @SocialSecurity has begun a major cleanup of their records. Approximately 3.2 million numberholders, all listed age 120+, have now been marked as deceased. More work still to be done. pic.twitter.com/nmAggTdLON
— Department of Government Efficiency (@DOGE) March 18, 2025
Musk first brought attention to the bizarre Social Security records after his team’s initial audit in February, posting a spreadsheet and joking, “Maybe Twilight is real and there are a lot of vampires collecting Social Security.”
Despite the eye-popping numbers, officials in the Social Security Administration has denied there is widespread fraud. The agency released a statement on March 5 claiming that these records “represent people who do not have a date of death associated with their record” and not necessarily active benefit recipients.
To prevent fraud, however, the SSA acknowledged in a statement that it is urgent to update the database with accurate information.
“While these people may not be receiving benefits, it is important for the agency to maintain accurate and complete records,” the agency said.
To prevent fraud in the past, the agency simply automatically stops benefit payments to anyone recorded as aged 115 and older — meaning even if records show them as “alive,” they stop receiving checks.
This problem has been well known but ignored for over a decade. A 2015 SSA review found 6.5 million people over 112 years old without death records who were likely deceased, meaning this isn’t necessarily recent fraud.
There is tension between Musk’s aggressive federal cost-cutting mission and long-term federal bureaucrats.
In the past, Musk has called Social Security the “biggest Ponzi scheme of all time” and said it must be reformed. He said there is likely “half trillion, maybe six, 700 billion” in annual wasteful federal spending that could be cut.
“So that’s the big one to eliminate,” Musk said about suspected Social Security over payments, noting that “most of the federal spending is entitlements” that could be streamlined.
That has led Democratic Party leaders to claim that the Trump administration wants to halt all Social Security payments. But Chris LaCivita, a top Trump adviser, quickly rejected their attacks.
“Now, they’re not going to cut social security,” LaCivita told Politico about the DOGE austerity measures. “They’re not going to cut Medicaid, they’re just not. That’s just fearmongering from the left.”
President Donald Trump has repeatedly said his focus on entitlement spending only relates to “fraud, waste, and abuse” and not the basic benefits program.
According to official SSA statistics, 67 million Americans receive Social Security benefits, but only about 53,000 are actually 100-years-old or more — a far cry from the 12+ million super-aged people in their database.
A July 2024 inspector general report found that between 2015 and 2022, less than 1 percent of the $8.6 trillion in distributed benefits were classified as improper payments.
“Social Security fraud certainly exists, but the claims it’s rampant because a database had many recipients who were supposedly aged at well over 100 years old isn’t evidence it’s widespread,” Alex Beene, an expert from the University of Tennessee at Martin, told Newsweek.
But, “the findings should alert the new administration to how antiquated many of the databases of government agencies are.”
DOGE has claimed to have already saved taxpayers $115 billion through various measures including “asset sales, contract/lease cancellations and renegotiations, fraud and improper payment deletion, grant cancellations, interest savings, programmatic changes, regulatory savings, and workforce reductions” as of March 11.
The agency says it will continue updating SSA’s records in the coming weeks, marking more of these Social Security numbers as deceased.