“Why do Elon ‘Social Security’s a Ponzi scheme’ Musk and his DOGE cronies need to stick their fingers in your personal data—your work history, income, benefits, and health records?” asked Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
President Donald Trump’s administration requested in an emergency filing on Friday that the U.S. Supreme Court allow members of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to access highly sensitive Social Security data, complaining that a lower court ruling is inflicting “ongoing, irreparable harm on urgent federal priorities.”
The filing, authored by U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer, asks the conservative-dominated Supreme Court to lift a preliminary injunction issued last monthby Maryland-based U.S. District Judge Ellen Hollander, who has accused Musk’s team of engaging in “a fishing expedition” at the Social Security Administration (SSA) “in search of a fraud epidemic, based on little more than suspicion.”
The Trump administration’s request escalates a monthslong fight over access to the sensitive records that began in February, when the then-acting head of SSA left her post after Musk’s lieutenants began infiltrating the agency and attempting to seize data.
A court ruling issued a month later ordered DOGE to “disgorge or delete all unlawfully obtained, disclosed, or accessed data.” Musk, the richest person in the world, has falsely described Social Security as a “Ponzi scheme” and peddled discredited claims of large-scale abuses in the program.
The Center for American Progress noted last month that “while President Trump and Elon Musk repeat the long-debunked claim that dead people are claiming Social Security benefits, DOGE staffers are reportedly searching for dead claimants.”
“As a result, according to The Washington Post, more than 10 million new people have been marked as dead since early March, including many seniors who are very much alive,” the think tank wrote in an analysis warning that DOGE’s efforts at SSA pose a grave threat to Social Security recipients. “For example, the SSA erroneously declared 82-year-old Seattle resident Ned Johnson dead. Before Johnson was even aware of or could remedy the mistake, the agency cut off his retirement benefits, took thousands of dollars out of his bank account, and cut off his Medicare.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) wrote in response to the administration’s Supreme Court filing that “Trump and Musk need to get their hands off Americans’ Social Security.”
“Why do Elon ‘Social Security’s a Ponzi scheme’ Musk and his DOGE cronies need to stick their fingers in your personal data—your work history, income, benefits, and health records?” Warren asked.
“Many Social Security field offices have lost half their staff, even as DOGE is forcing millions more people a year to visit those offices. What good are earned benefits that Americans can’t access?”
As the Economic Policy Institute recently explained, Social Security personnel “protect a trove of personally identifiable information.”
“Sensitive information stored in SSA databases includes not only Social Security numbers, but also detailed earnings, tax, banking, and medical records,” the group observed. “Until DOGE entered SSA headquarters, this information was carefully protected, with limited access granted to specially trained employees only for specific purposes.”
The Trump administration’s aggressive push to access SSA data comes amid a broader assault on the agency and Social Security itself, despite the president’s vow to protect the program.
Earlier Friday, the White House released a budget proposal that calls for leaving SSA funding flat, which advocates said is effectively a cut given rising costs.
“The truth is that Social Security is extremely understaffed, which is increasing backlogs and wait times,” Nancy Altman, the president of Social Security Works, said in a statement. “This budget will make those backlogs and delays worse. It will make mistakes—including the Orwellian nightmare of being inadvertently declared dead when you are not—harder to fix.”
“This budget’s cuts to Social Security are right in line with Elon Musk’s DOGE, which has pushed out over 7,000 SSA workers, including some of the most experienced and highly trained,” Altman added. “Many Social Security field offices have lost half their staff, even as DOGE is forcing millions more people a year to visit those offices. What good are earned benefits that Americans can’t access?”
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