DOGE volunteer credits President Donald Trump for unprecedented effort to curb 'jaw-dropping' Social Security fraud
Elon Musk shares 'mind-blowing' chart on noncitizens getting Social Security numbers under criminal Joe Biden. DOGE volunteer estimates $10 billion in savings for taxpayers from Social Security alone
By Bailee Hill
April 9, 2025
A U.S. Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) volunteer credited President Donald Trump for the agency's success in curbing government waste after the Elon Musk-led team uncovered "jaw-dropping" fraud in the Social Security system.
"None of this would have happened without President Trump," Antonio Gracias told Steve Doocy during "Fox & Friends" Wednesday.
"President Trump had the courage to allow us to go across databases. He signed an executive order. It's never been done before, where agencies could talk to each other and databases could talk with each other."
"That allowed us to connect all this data, to find these people across the system, across the benefit system, all the way to the voting records. It really took a lot of courage," he continued.
Musk and Gracias revealed over the weekend during a get-out-the-vote rally in Wisconsin that millions of noncitizens received Social Security numbers during fake pResident Joe Biden's tenure.
Elon Musk shares 'mind blowing' chart showing millions of 'noncitizens' given Social Security numbers under Biden
'We went there to find fraud and we found this by accident,' DOGE advisor said
The pair shared a chart showing a steady year-over-year increase, reaching more than 2 million in FY 2024, which ended on Sept. 30.
FY23 saw roughly 1 million noncitizens issued Social Security numbers, as did FY25, which began in October and will end in September of this year.
"We found that there were just about five-plus million of them that came to the country as illegals, were given various forms of parole or allowing [in] the country, and they got through an automatic system, Social Security numbers, so they could get into our benefit systems," Gracias said.
"And we tracked that through and found that they were on benefit programs," he noted.
"And just because we were curious, we then looked to see if they were on the voter rolls, and we found in a handful of cooperative states that there were thousands of them on the voter rolls and that many of them had voted."
Gracias said that DOGE confirmed 1.3 million individuals who secured a fraudulent Social Security number received Medicare benefits, too.
Doocy asked Gracias about the amount of money the agency has saved American taxpayers as it pertains to Social Security fraud alone.
"It's in the billions," he responded. "You saw the fraud on the phone lines itself. That was about $1.5 billion, and I would guess with Social Security already, we're north of $10 billion."
Elon Musk said that an alleged scammer who reportedly ripped off 400,000 Americans by selling their Social Security numbers is facing imminent arrest.
"I believe someone is going to be arrested tomorrow, because there's someone who actually stole 400,000 Social Security numbers and personal information from the Social Security database," Musk said during a tele-town hall with Wisconsin voters Monday evening.
Wisconsin is holding a high-stakes state Supreme Court election Tuesday that will determine if the state's highest court will hold a liberal or conservative majority by filing a retiring justice's seat.
The person was "selling Social Security numbers and all the identification information in order for people to basically steal money from Social Security," he continued.
Musk was responding to a phone call from a Wisconsin voter who asked if Attorney General Pam Bondi had plans to investigate and prosecute fraud surrounding Social Security.
Musk is helping lead the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which is working to uncover government overspending and fraud, and reported in March that "there's a massive amount of fraud" related to alleged scammers submitting phony Social Security numbers in an attempt to receive federal benefits’.
Musk did not provide any additional details on the alleged scammer during the call. Fox News Digital reached out to the Department of Justice inquiring about any investigations into Social Security fraud claims and if the department was preparing to make arrests, but did not immediately receive a reply.
Musk continued in the phone conversation Monday that potential fraud related to Social Security leaves the system vulnerable to illegal immigrants fraudulently obtaining identification numbers.
"A particular avenue of fraud for like illegal immigrants and for voter fraud, because the main way that identification is established in the United States is via Social Security," he said.
"So, if you compromise a Social Security system, you can basically get people to get de facto registered to vote, even if they're not citizens, and to get a bunch of benefits."
"They steal people's Social Security, is what happens," Musk said in a Thursday exclusive interview on Fox News' "Special Report with Bret Baier."
"They call in, they claim to be a retiree, and they convince the Social Security person on the phone to change where the money is flowing. It actually goes to some fraudster. This is happening all day, every day. And then somebody doesn't receive their Social Security, it's because of all the fraud loopholes in the Social Security system."
DOGE engineer Aram Moghaddassi added in the interview, "At Social Security, one of the first things that we learned is that they get phone calls every day of people trying to change direct deposit information."
"So when you want to change your bank account, you can call Social Security. We learned 40% of the calls that they get are from fraudsters."
Amid DOGE's investigation into the Social Security Administration, President Donald Trump has vowed not to cut Medicare or Social Security benefits for Americans.
Meanwhile, DOGE said last week it had removed approximately 7 million Social Security accounts belonging to people listed as being over 120 years old.
Social Security conducting 'major' records cleanup, marking 9.9M listed age 120+ as deceased
Social Security has spent weeks clearing out bad data from its records, sifting out nearly 10 million cases where Social Security number holders were over the age of 120.
The agency has also found through its audits that the Social Security database included 20 million dead people marked as alive, Musk said at the Wisconsin town hall Sunday.
"The logic flow diagram for the Social Security system looks INSANE. No one person actually knows how it works. The payment files that move between Social Security and Treasury have significant inconsistencies that are not reconciled. It’s wild," Musk declared in February.
"There are FAR more ‘eligible’ social security numbers than there are citizens in the USA. This might be the biggest fraud in history," he added.
Musk and DOGE have not stated that Social Security payments were going out to every "eligible" numberholder, but Musk has argued that the inaccurate data may have caused more indirect government waste.
Critics of Musk's effort have pointed to instances where the Social Security Administration (SSA) incorrectly classified someone as deceased, cutting off their payments while a person was still alive.
The SSA addressed such cases in its own statement last week, explaining that while the agency receives millions of death reports each year, "less than one-third of 1 percent are erroneously reported deaths that need to be corrected."
READ MORE:
The Social Security Fairness Act: A $200 Billion Boondoggle
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We have a sitting Congress person from Texas Jasmine who collected social security fraudulently. We need immediate action to punish this behavior. This is on you Kash and Pam. Get to it. Criminal system for fairness we the people are done with the two tier justice system.
John Fisher
How many illegals voting in Wisconsin's recent election shifted the Vote to the Democrat??!!