Elon Musk’s team is reportedly turning its attention to the Social Security Administration as the billionaire claims—without any evidence—the agency is infested by widespread fraud, prompting its top official to quit over data access and drawing outcry over the system’s future, as both Musk and President Donald Trump vow to leave people’s benefits alone.

It’s unclear if Musk and DOGE will make any changes at the SSA, as Musk has so far broadly said he wants to root out fraud without proposing any specific cuts or reforms. It’s unclear what any changes DOGE could make would look like and when they could be implemented, though the widescale funding and personnel cuts DOGE officials have made at other agencies suggests any moves could come quickly and be broad in scope.

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???”

By all accounts, no—at least not anywhere near at the scale Musk has claimed. There’s no concrete evidence suggesting overwhelming fraud in the Social Security system. 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.

The biggest fraud claim Musk and the Trump administration have perpetuated is suggesting the government is making Social Security payments to people who are deceased, with Leavitt claiming “tens of millions” of people are receiving fraudulent payments. 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 has 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.” Trump proposed during his campaign that he would get rid of the income tax Americans pay on Social Security payments, but has not yet taken any action toward that. Experts criticized his proposal because they argued it would make Social Security insolvent faster. 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.

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.

Trump has appointed Leland Dudek to run 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. Dudek previously ran Social Security’s anti-fraud office, and The Post reports he has made positive comments about DOGE’s work in the past. Trump tapping Dudek to temporarily lead the SSA—instead of one of the many higher-ranking career officials who have long worked at the agency—has set off alarm bells at the SSA, The Post reports citing anonymous sources. “To pick an acting commissioner that is not in the senior executive service sends a message that professional people should leave that beleaguered public agency,” Martin O’Malley, a Democrat who served as Social Security Commissioner during the Biden administration, told The Post, warning he believes Musk and DOGE’s incursion into the SSA “will break it fast, and there will be an interruption of benefits.”

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. A federal judge has blocked DOGE from accessing Treasury 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 Education. 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.