Fraud or Government Incompetence?
Elon Musk’s latest discovery is shining a harsh light on one of the federal government’s most bloated and mismanaged agencies: the Social Security Administration (SSA). As head of the newly minted Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Musk and his team have stumbled upon what can only be described as bureaucratic absurdity—Social Security beneficiaries who, according to federal records, are somehow over 150 years old.
A System Riddled with Fraud?
In a statement, Musk revealed that even a cursory review of the SSA’s records uncovered individuals still receiving benefits despite their listed birthdates placing them in the early 1800s—some even before the U.S. Constitution was ratified.
“There’s crazy things, like, just a cursory examination of Social Security and we’ve got people in there that are about 150 years old,” Musk remarked.
Later on Sunday night, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO took to Twitter to expose even more details. “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’s tweet was accompanied by a table showing the reported number of beneficiaries at various ages. The results were nothing short of shocking:
Staggering Numbers of Suspicious Beneficiaries
-Age 100-109: 4,734,407
-Age 110-119: 3,627,007
-Age 120-129: 3,472,849
-Age 130-139: 3,936,311
-Age 140-149: 3,542,044
-Age 150-159: 1,345,083
-Age 160-169: 121,807
-Age 180+: Over 3,000 supposed beneficiaries
According to the Social Security database, these are the numbers of people in each age bucket with the death field set to FALSE!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 17, 2025
Maybe Twilight is real and there are a lot of vampires collecting Social Security 🤣🤣 pic.twitter.com/ltb06VX98Z
To put this in perspective, the oldest verified person to have ever lived was Jeanne Calment, a French woman who reached 122 years and 164 days. Yet the SSA claims to be paying benefits to millions of individuals well beyond that age.
Government Waste at an Unprecedented Level
The implications here are staggering. If the SSA’s records contain millions of ghost recipients, taxpayers are footing an enormous bill for fraudulent payouts. As of 2021, there were only around 89,739 centenarians living in the United States. The numbers in Musk’s report suggest a wildly inflated count of recipients far exceeding any reasonable expectation of longevity.
Current research suggests the natural human lifespan maxes out around 120 to 125 years, due to biological constraints like cellular division limits and genetic programming. Advances in medicine may push this boundary in the future, but we’re certainly not there yet.
So, if these individuals aren’t alive, who is cashing in on their benefits?
Time for a Serious Audit
Musk’s findings underscore the necessity of rigorous audits and sweeping reforms within federal agencies. The SSA—one of the largest government programs in existence—handles trillions of taxpayer dollars, yet it appears to have glaring systemic failures allowing either fraud or severe record-keeping incompetence.
This revelation raises key questions:
How many of these “beneficiaries” are actually deceased?
Who is receiving these fraudulent payments?
Why hasn’t the federal government already cracked down on this problem?
Is this just the tip of the iceberg for wasteful spending in Washington?
For years, Americans have been told that Social Security is running out of money. But if Musk’s findings hold up, the real problem may not be a lack of funding—but rather mismanagement, negligence and a federal bureaucracy incapable of maintaining basic integrity over its own programs.
Musk’s DOGE team has already made waves by challenging inefficiencies in government operations. If this is just the beginning, Washington may soon find itself under scrutiny like never before. Taxpayers deserve better. It’s time to demand accountability.
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AND HOW MUCH DOES THIS ADD UP TO OVER THE YEARS THIS BS HAS BEEN GOING ON?!?!
George Bush took out 1.5 trillion for Iraq afghanistan war, Nancy Pelici took out 3 billion to impeach Trump. Just to name a few its a slush fund fo politicians. Tax payers who are disabled have to sue. While politicians and illegals.
Bravo for the sleuthing & discovery! Stop those ‘cold turkey!’ Keep doing the good work! Prayers continue!’
I wonder how much of this money is ending up in the pockets of corrupt globalist establishment elites?
Washington DC has become a cesspool of corruption it’s time we need to call the septic clean out guys to pump out the cesspool corruption.
I agree, time for a serious AUDIT, need to find out if it’s fraud or Data Entry typos. For example my last name always gets misspelled on documents because it is not the more prevalent spelling , so clerks enter it misspelled.
But given Trump’s prolific lying to twist facts, how is the public to believe some of these declarations are factually based if rendered by his sycophants.
There are those that think my idea that I can live to over 190 years old is crazy. BUT Elon Musk and his team of computer geeks in a first look at Social Security has found the there are over 25 million people that are over 100 years old, listed on the SS rolls as still alive and probably receiving SS benefits. At least one of them was born before the Constitution was written!
So statistics are in my favor. There are 334 million people in the united states, and at least 7% of that population is over 100 years old…….unless SS is rife with fraud….. and I trust MY government. So I have a good chance to live to 191.
I prefer to give social Security the benefit of the doubt and just accept the statistics that show I still have many more years ahead of me.
It will be interesting to cross match these SSN’s to the IRS database of tax filers. And how many are still registered to vote? The next interesting thing would be the numbers of people over 100 by decade by state.
To put an exclamation point on this. THIS IS NOT NEW NEWS. What DOGE is reporting has been reported several times before…and the Social Security Administration did NOTHING! That is the level of incompetency and corruption in the federal government.
you guys are morons for real.
Who are the “you guys” in your comment?
I want to know if the Department of Justice is going to look into who is cashing these checks. These people should be in jail for knowingly taking the money.
20,000,00+ over 100 years old found in the first data-mining effort through the Social Security Administration [SSA] files. About 90,000 actually living (in 2021).
Yeah, a forensic audit of EVERY federal government agency needs to happen during this “first 100 days” of the 47th administration.
I hope to God that these crooks are found! Where did all of that money go? And WHO “borrowed” from Social Security account and put in the General Fund?
Someone did. I read about a long time ago. Was that ever investigated?
Undeniably believe that which you said. Your favorite justification seemed to
be on the net the simplest thing to take into account of.
I say to you, I definitely get annoyed at the same time as people consider issues that
they plainly do not know about. You managed to hit the nail upon the top
and defined out the entire thing with no need side effect , people could take a signal.
Will likely be back to get more. Thank you