Billionaire Elon Musk suggested in an interview Monday he wants to eliminate up to half a trillion dollars in entitlement spending—claiming that’s how much “waste and fraud” is in the system—after he and President Donald Trump have repeatedly alleged without evidence that Social Security is subject to widespread fraud, but vowed to leave people’s benefits alone.

It’s unclear if Musk and DOGE will make any changes at the SSA beyond the cuts to the agency’s workforce, as Musk has so far broadly said he wants to root out fraud without proposing any specific cuts or reforms. While Trump has broadly said his administration is investigating purported fraud at the agency, it remains to be seen what further changes DOGE or Trump could make and when they could be implemented, though cuts at this and other agencies suggest reductions to the agency’s funding could be widespread in scope.

Musk claimed in the Fox interview Monday that entitlements are “the mechanism by which the Democrats attract and retain illegal immigrants, by essentially paying them to come here and turning them into voters.” The billionaire claimed Democrats are upset about Musk’s comments about entitlements because “if we turn off this gigantic money magnet for illegal immigrants, they will leave, and [Democrats]

Musk’s comments about entitlements on Fox Business have drawn widespread condemnation from Democrats. “There were howls of protest and denial from the GOP any time we pointed out that Republicans want to cut Social Security,” former Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg wrote on X. “Now the most powerful official in the White House goes on TV and calls it ‘the big one to eliminate.’” Democrats have repeatedly raised concerns since the inauguration that Trump and Musk could try to cut Americans’ benefits even as they’ve vowed not to, with Rep. Sarah McBride, D-Del., telling CNN on Feb. 3 the administration’s broad cuts to other areas of the federal government suggests “we cannot take them at their word when they say Social Security and Medicare are protected.”

SSA Acting Commissioner Leland Dudek, a Trump ally, told senior staff and advocates for the elderly and disabled that DOGE’s cuts to the agency are being made by “outsiders who are unfamiliar with nuances of SSA programs” and he is “receiving decisions that are made without my input,” The Washington Post reported citing anonymous sources. “DOGE people are learning and they will make mistakes, but we have to let them see what is going on at SSA,” Dudek said, claiming the agency is “abolishing its old ways of “setting goals, doing studies, discussion, getting information and data before making decisions.” Dudek touted Trump’s efforts to root out purported fraud in a press release following the president’s speech to Congress, which thanked Trump for “highlighting these inconsistencies,” arguing the agency was “steadfast in our commitment to root out fraud, waste, and abuse in our programs” and was “actively correcting inconsistencies.” Dudek’s rise from the agency’s anti-fraud head to acting commissioner has set off “alarm bells” among agency staff, The Post previously reported, as Trump chose him over higher-ranking career officials at the agency.

By all accounts, no—at least not anywhere near at the scale Musk and Trump have claimed. There’s no concrete evidence suggesting overwhelming fraud in the Social Security system, and Musk’s claims of up to “half a trillion” in fraud would be approximately a third of the $1.5 trillion that was paid out by Social Security in fiscal year 2024. Errors and abuse of the system do exist, but data suggests it’s relatively rare. The Inspector General’s office that oversees the SSA reported in August the SSA made nearly $72 billion in improper payments between fiscal years 2015 and 2023—which, while a large number, is still less than 1% of the total Social Security benefits paid during that period.

While Musk and Trump have vowed not to touch Americans’ Social Security benefits, their cuts to the agency could have knock-on effects that affect service. The Post reports that phone lines at the agency have already gotten significantly backed up, which has prevented staff at an office in Indiana from handling retirement claims. Martin O’Malley, a Democrat and former Maryland governor who ran the SSA under the Biden administration, also issued a dire warning about the impact of DOGE’s cuts to the agency, which he predicted would lead to staff shortages at the agency and IT systems outages that could interfere with Americans’ benefits. “Ultimately, you’re going to see the system collapse and an interruption of benefits,” O’Malley told CNBC on Saturday, which he projected could happen “within the next 30 to 90 days.” “People should start saving now,” O’Malley said.

The biggest fraud claim Musk and Trump have perpetuated is suggesting the government is making Social Security payments to people who are deceased. Leavitt has claimed “tens of millions” of people are receiving fraudulent payments, and Trump said during his speech to Congress there are some 16 million people in the Social Security database listed as being between 100 and 159 years old. There is no evidence to support any fraud on that scale—which would be a substantial percentage of the 73 million Americans who receive benefits overall—though the inspector general has found the agency has made improper payments to dead people on a far, far smaller scale. Musk and Trump have claimed the government is paying benefits to people who are 150 years old, but experts have suggested that’s not actually the case and may be a quirk of the dated programming language used by the SSA’s computer systems. Whenever an American’s birth date in the system is missing or incomplete, that system will default to saying they were born in 1875, Wired notes, which means they would be falsely listed as being 150 years old. The IG’s office has also said tens of millions of people over the age of 100 erroneously remain in the SSA database—but it’s not clear how many actually received payments. SSA has said it automatically terminates Social Security payments for any beneficiary age 115 and above, in order to root out people who are deceased.

Trump has said he’s not looking to cut Social Security—a third rail in U.S. politics given the program’s popularity. Trump drew controversy during the election for suggesting he could make cuts to Social Security and Medicare, telling CNBC in March, “There is a lot you can do in terms of entitlements, in terms of cutting and in terms of also the theft and the bad management of entitlements.” The Trump campaign insisted Trump was not trying to suggest he wanted to cut entitlements, with Leavitt—then his campaign spokesperson—saying Trump “will continue to strongly protect Social Security and Medicare in his second term.”

Dudek is now running the SSA on an acting basis in the wake of King’s resignation, until Fiserv CEO Frank Bisignano, whom Trump has nominated to permanently lead the agency, is confirmed by the Senate. In comments to CNBC in February, Bisignano said his mission at the agency will be to “carry out the president’s mission,” noting, “The objective is not to touch benefits,” but mentioning his desire to root out “fraud, waste and abuse.” The Trump nominee also said he would “100% work with DOGE” at the SSA, saying his past work trying to build efficiency in the private sector makes him “fundamentally a DOGE person.”

During his speech to Congress, Trump reiterated his proposal to eliminate income taxes on Social Security payments, which the president first proposed on the campaign trail but has not yet taken any steps towards. Experts criticized his proposal during the election because they argued it would make Social Security insolvent faster, however. While Social Security is already projected to run out of money by 2034 at its current rate, the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget projected exempting taxes on benefits would result in Social Security and Medicare receiving $1.6 trillion less in revenue between 2026 and 2035 than if the current rules stayed in place, causing Social Security to become insolvent in 2032.

It’s not clear what data Musk’s team is looking to access or why, but Nancy Altman, president of the left-leaning advocacy group Social Security Works, told The Washington Post the agency has private information for millions of Americans, including Social Security numbers, medical information for those receiving disability benefits, employment records, bank records and more. Altman argued there’s “no way to overstate how serious” a “breach” of Social Security’s systems by DOGE would be, telling CNN the “SSA has data on everyone who has a Social Security number, which is virtually all Americans, everyone who has Medicare, and every low-income American who has applied for Social Security’s means-tested companion program, Supplemental Security Income.” “If there is an evil intent to punish perceived enemies, someone could erase your earnings record, making it impossible to collect the Social Security and Medicare benefits you have earned,” Altman claimed. There is currently no evidence of DOGE mishandling data, and Musk has said he doesn’t have any intention to use Americans’ personal information at all, responding to concerns about his access to Americans’ data Monday by referencing his previous work for payment company Paypal. He wrote, “Bruh, if I wanted to rummage through random personal s—t, I could have done that at PAYPAL. Hello???”

Another explanation for Musk’s fraud claims is people such as undocumented immigrants paying into Social Security by taking over numbers belonging to people who have since died, Alex Nowratesh, an expert at the libertarian Cato Institute, noted. The SSA’s inspector general reported in 2015 that between fiscal years 2008 and 2011, employers performed more than 4,000 E-Verify checks for employees involving Social Security numbers that belonged to someone born before 1901. Trump’s mass deportations may also harm Social Security’s financial future, as undocumented immigrants bolster the Social Security system by paying into it through their taxes but not receiving any benefits. The office of the Social Security Administration’s chief actuary estimated in 2013 that undocumented immigrants contributed approximately $12 billion to Social Security in 2010, and CFRB estimated Trump’s deportation plans, along with proposed tariffs, would together cost Social Security anywhere between $300 billion and $750 billion between fiscal years 2026 and 2035.

DOGE’s reported involvement in Social Security comes after the Musk-helmed group, dedicated to rooting out purported federal waste, has already drawn widespread controversy for making cuts across the federal government, including canceling federal spending and terminating vast swaths of federal employees. The group’s access to sensitive information at other federal agencies has also attracted criticism and legal action, as DOGE has accessed systems at the Departments of Treasury, Labor and Education, among others. Federal judge have blocked DOGE from accessing Treasury and Education Department data as litigation over officials’ access continues, though other judges have been unwilling to issue immediate orders keeping DOGE officials from information at the Departments of Labor and declined to halt the group’s work more broadly. Musk and DOGE were also behind the widespread dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development, and have targeted other federal agencies such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.