DOGE Says It Completed ‘Major Cleanup’ of Social Security Records

It said that around 12.3 million people aged 120 and older are ’marked as deceased.’

Elon Musk speaks during an event with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington on Feb. 11, 2025. Alex Brandon/AP Photo

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) said in a statement on Thursday that its staff have completed a “major cleanup” of Social Security records after it was discovered that more than 12 million people aged 120 or older were in the system.

“After 11 weeks, Social Security has finished this major cleanup initiative,” DOGE wrote in a post on social media platform X, adding that some 12.3 million individuals listed as being aged 120 or older “have now been marked as deceased.”

But it added that “some complex cases remain, such as individuals with 2+ different birth dates on file,” which “will be investigated in a follow-up effort.”

DOGE also provided a portion of a screenshot that showed there were about 3.3 million people aged 120 to 129, 3.9 million aged 130 to 139, 3.5 million listed as age 140 to 149, 1.3 million listed as age 150 to 159, and around 124,000 listed as age 160 to 169, all of whom were marked as deceased in the Social Security system.

The update comes as new Social Security Administrator Frank Bisignano told Fox Business earlier this week that Social Security’s “records were not very good, and that’s the source of fraud.”

“The amount of people that were not alive that did not show on the system ... was outstanding. Millions and millions. And that is a source of potential for fraud,” he told the news outlet, adding that the work that DOGE did in the agency “was 100 percent accurate” in a bid to locate anything that could lead to fraud.

That’s because, according to Bisignano, an active Social Security number that is “still alive in the system” presents the “opportunity for fraud.”

Established by President Donald Trump in January, DOGE is tasked with finding what officials say are fraud, waste, and abuse. But its efforts have been blocked in several court cases, namely in the Social Security Administration.

DOGE’s recent announcement on its Social Security record cleanup efforts comes as the Trump administration submitted an emergency petition to the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this month to allow access to Social Security data after lower courts blocked its access.

In March, U.S. District Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander, who is based in Maryland, ruled that DOGE could not access Social Security systems because such a move could run afoul of the federal Privacy Act, also alleging that the task force’s mission to root out fraud, waste, and abuse is a “fishing expedition.” She also directed the DOGE team to delete any personally identifiable data that it may have in its possession.

“The DOGE Team is essentially engaged in a fishing expedition at SSA, in search of a fraud epidemic, based on little more than suspicion. It has launched a search for the proverbial needle in the haystack, without any concrete knowledge that the needle is actually in the haystack,” the judge wrote.

A month later, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit issued a ruling to uphold Hollander’s order, prompting the Trump administration to file its appeal with the Supreme Court.

A court filing submitted by Solicitor General D. John Sauer on May 13 argued that Hollander effectively superseded the executive branch and “dictated ... which government employees can access which data and even prescribed necessary training, background checks, and paperwork for data access.”

“When district courts attempt to transform themselves into the human resources department for the Executive Branch, the irreparable harm to the government is clear,” he wrote.

The task force has been effectively led by tech billionaire Elon Musk, a senior adviser to Trump and a special government employee, meaning he has 130 days to complete his work. Musk said in a Tesla earnings call last month that he would be stepping back from his government duties in May to focus on his company.