A major bombshell announcement from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has exposed endemic Social Security Fraud, which affects millions of seniors. In their major report, DOGE employees revealed that 40% of Social Security Administration (SSA) phone calls are fraudulent attempts to redirect funds from their rightful owners.
To explain the background, President Trump appointed Musk to lead DOGE and tasked him with implementing cost-cutting measures across the federal government. Acting on the president’s mandate, DOGE has focused explicitly on Social Security and made several sweeping changes to address the systemic fraud it uncovered.
Such was shown when Elon Musk and DOGE employees exposed widespread Social Security fraud in a Fox News segment, “Behind the Scenes: Musk and Staffers Talk DOGE Work and Goals,” hosted by Bret Baier on March 26, 2025. A DOGE staffer said, “I’ll say the two improvements that we’re trying to make to Social Security are helping people that legitimately get benefits protect them from fraud that they experience every day on a routine basis, and also make the experience better.”
He continued to provide proof for his findings. The DOGE employee said, “And I’ll give you one example. At Social Security, one of the first things we learned is that they get phone calls every day from people trying to change direct deposit information. So when you want to change your bank account, you can call Social Security. We learned 40% of the phone calls that they get are from fraudsters. 40%, that’s right, almost half.”
Building on that, Elon Musk, the SpaceX CEO and head of DOGE, replied with additional context. He said, “Yes, they steal people’s Social Security. What happens is they call in, they say they claim to be a retiree. Then they they and they convinced the first the Social Security person on the phone to change the where the where the money’s flowing. It actually goes to some fraudster. This is happening all day, every day, and then somebody doesn’t receive their Social Security. It’s because of all the … loopholes in the Social Security system.”
In response, when a clip of the interaction was posted to X, conservatives were incensed by the attack on vulnerable seniors. Eric Daughtry, a conservative journalist, reacted to the clip by thanking Musk for protecting Social Security. He said, “ #BREAKING: One of Elon Musk’s DOGE geniuses just revealed MASSIVE fraud at Social Security. He says 40% of the phone calls they get are from fraudsters. THAT’S why they’re so focused on the telephone services! This is not acceptable! @ElonMusk is trying to change this!”
Watch the clip here:
"*" indicates required fields
In the replies to Daughtry’s post, users expressed anger at the rampant fraud. One of the comments said, “Absolutely unacceptable. If 40% of all calls to Social Security are fraud attempts, that’s not just a glitch—it’s a full-blown system failure. People work their whole lives for those benefits, and to have them rerouted by scammers exploiting outdated call-in systems is criminal negligence.”
Other replies were enraged that this fraud was tolerated for so long. One of the responses read, “This should never be an issue. The SSA should simply be able to type in my SSN and know exactly who I am, where I live, and where I work. There is only one of me and my SSN should be unique to me. If a person can’t answer those questions they should be denied any changes. You’d think this would be easy peasy.”
Featured image from embedded video