By Alan Rappeport, Andrew Duehren and Nicholas Nehamas
The top official at the Social Security Administration stepped down this weekend after members of Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency sought access to sensitive personal data about millions of Americans held by the agency, according to people familiar with the matter.
The resignation of Michelle King, the acting commissioner, is the latest abrupt departure of a senior federal official who refused to provide Musk’s lieutenants with access to closely held data. Musk’s team has been embedding with agencies across the federal government and seeking access to private data as part of what it has said is an effort to root out fraud and waste.
Social Security payments account for about $1.5 trillion, or a fifth, of annual federal spending in the United States. President Donald Trump has pledged not to enact cuts to the program’s retirement benefits, but he has indicated that he is willing to look for ways to cut wasteful or improper spending from the retirement program that pays benefits to millions of Americans.
An audit produced by the Social Security Administration’s inspector general last year found that from 2015 to 2022, the agency paid almost $8.6 trillion in benefits and made approximately $71.8 billion, or less than 1%, in improper payments that usually involved recipients getting too much money.
Musk’s team at the Social Security Administration was seeking access to an internal data repository that contains extensive personal information about Americans, according to two people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation. The agency’s systems contain financial data, employment information and addresses for anyone with a Social Security number.
“SSA has comprehensive medical records of people who have applied for disability benefits,” said Nancy Altman, president of Social Security Works, a group that promotes the expansion of Social Security. “It has our bank information, our earnings records, the names and ages of our children, and much more.”
Warning about the risks of Musk’s team’s gaining access to the data, Altman added, “There is no way to overstate how serious a breach this is.”
Access to that information is generally held closely within the agency because of privacy concerns, according to one former employee. It is not clear how many members of Musk’s staff sought access to it, whether they ultimately succeeded or whether they had been granted full employment status at the Social Security Administration.
King in January had been made the acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration, which has about 58,000 employees. She started at the agency as bilingual claims representative in 1994 and rose through the ranks to hold numerous senior positions, including chief financial officer and deputy commissioner for operations. The Washington Post first reported King’s departure.
A family member said King had no comment.
King was replaced by Leland Dudek, a career official who has been overseeing the agency’s anti-fraud office, according to people familiar with the matter. He did not respond to a request for comment. Before he was named, Dudek posted comments on LinkedIn praising Musk’s team and saying he had been assisting its efforts, according to people who saw his posts. Dudek has deleted his account.
The Senate has not yet taken up the nomination of Trump’s pick to oversee the agency, Frank Bisignano, a financial technology executive who runs a digital payments company.
A White House spokesperson, Harrison Fields, said Monday that he expected Bisignano to soon be confirmed.
“In the meantime, the agency will be led by a career Social Security anti-fraud expert as the acting commissioner,” Fields wrote on the social platform X. “President Trump is committed to appointing the best and most qualified individuals who are dedicated to working on behalf of the American people, not to appease the bureaucracy that has failed them for far too long.”
Musk’s team has also been seeking access to sensitive data at the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service.
The White House confirmed this weekend that Musk’s team was in the process of gaining access to taxpayer information from the tax collection agency.
In January, the Treasury Department pushed out a career civil servant, David Lebryk, after he resisted giving Musk’s team access to the government’s vast payment system at the Bureau of the Fiscal Service.
Speaking at the White House last week, Musk asserted without providing evidence that a cursory examination of the Social Security Administration found that people listed in its systems as being 150 years old were receiving benefits. And in a post on the social platform X on Saturday evening, Musk posted an image that he said was from a Social Security database that he suggested indicated dead people were collecting payments.
Martin O’Malley, who served as commissioner of the Social Security Administration in the Biden administration, said in an interview that the claims of Musk and his team about the agency were not true.
“They’re just making” things up, he said, referring to Musk’s suggestion that more than 1 million people in the Social Security database are in the 150 to 159 age range.
O’Malley described King as a “consummate civil servant.”
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