White House Says Musk Not in Charge of DOGE

Reuters
Reuters
By Michael Rainey

Happy Tuesday! President Trump and his trusty sidekick Elon Musk - who, as it turns out, is not running the DOGE project, at least not officially (more on that below) - sit down with Fox News tonight as they push ahead on their effort to remake Washington. Here's what you need to know in the meantime.

Social Security Head Resigns as DOGE Seeks Sensitive Data

The acting head of the Social Security Administration stepped down from the agency this past weekend, following an effort by the Trump administration's DOGE project to access sensitive government records.

The White House said Acting Commissioner Michelle King, who has worked at Social Security for more than 30 years, has been replaced by Leland Dudek, another agency employee. Frank Bisignano, Trump's nominee to run the agency, is awaiting Senate confirmation.

Although details about exactly what happened at the Social Security Administration are still unclear, sources told multiple news agencies that DOGE officials wanted to gain access to Social Security internal systems that contain personal information about millions of Americans, and King objected. It is not known if DOGE has now been granted access to the data.

Nancy Altman, president of Social Security Works, a liberal-leaning think tank that advocates for the retirement program, said the data DOGE wants to see is highly detailed and sensitive. "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," she said in a statement. "It has our bank information, our earnings records, the names and ages of our children, and much more."

Altman warned that in the wrong hands, the data could be used to steal from beneficiaries, or even exact political revenge. "Older people are disproportionately susceptible to scams. The data at SSA leaking would make the numbers of scams skyrocket," she said. "And, if there is an 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."

Musk raises fears of fraud: The moves come amid claims by the Trump administration and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who appears to be leading the DOGE effort, that they are discovering enormous fraud in the Social Security system. On Sunday, Musk published data from "the Social Security database" suggesting that it contains millions of people over the age of 100, and implied that they are fraudulently receiving benefits.

"Maybe Twilight is real and there are a lot of vampires collecting Social Security," he said on X, the social media platform he owns. He added that "there are FAR more 'eligible' social security numbers than there are citizens in the USA. This might be the biggest fraud in history."

The White House echoed these claims and defended Musk's work. "President Trump has directed Elon Musk and the DOGE team to identify fraud at the Social Security Administration," White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News. "They haven't dug into the books yet, but they suspect that there are tens of millions of deceased people who are receiving fraudulent Social Security payments."

The data says something else: People who have studied and worked within the Social Security system for years say that the data Musk has highlighted represent well-known issues at the agency - and they are relatively minor problems that are not related to significant fraud. There are indeed Social Security records that show extreme age, but virtually no individuals associated with those records receive payments.

"There are maybe hundreds of deceased people receiving fraudulent benefits, not tens of millions," Marc Goldwein of the fiscally conservative Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget said on social media in response to Musk's claims. "There are about 70 million people TOTAL receiving Social Security - does anyone really think one third+ of them are dead???"

James Surowiecki, who covered the business world for New Yorker magazine, dug into the issue and concluded that Musk and DOGE were playing with data they didn't understand - a conclusion others have reached as well. "This is absurd, corrosive nonsense," Surowiecki wrote on X. "There are not tens of millions of dead people getting Social Security checks, and the only reason Leavitt is out here making these hysterical claims is because Elon Musk misunderstood a table of numbers."

NBC's Sahil Kapur highlighted a 2024 inspector's general report that concluded that the error rate in Social Security payments is actually quite low. The IG found that from 2015 to 2022, the Social Security Administration paid out nearly $8.6 trillion in benefits, including roughly $71 billion in improper payments - an error rate of 0.84%.

Musk Not in Charge of DOGE, White House Says

Before taking office in January, President Donald Trump announced the creation of a Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE, to be run by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. Trump said these "two wonderful Americans" would have the goal of dismantling and restructuring the federal bureaucracy, slashing regulations and cutting wasteful spending. The project would entail major structural changes never seen before in Washington, with effects that could make "the Manhattan Project of our time."

Ramaswamy dropped out of the effort by the time the inauguration rolled around, leaving Musk in charge of what has turned out to be an all-out assault on multiple federal agencies. Musk's status within the federal government, however, has never been entirely clear, and according to a legal filing this weekend, it turns out Musk is not formally running DOGE after all.

In response to a lawsuit seeking to limit DOGE's activities, Joshua Fisher, the director of the White House's Office of Administration, told a court that Musk is not in charge of DOGE and has no authority to make decisions within the federal government.

Fisher said Musk is a special government employee, or SGE, who serves as a senior adviser to the president. "In his role as a Senior Advisor to the President, Mr. Musk has no greater authority than other senior White House advisors. Like other senior White House advisors, Mr. Musk has no actual or formal authority to make government decisions himself. Mr. Musk can only advise the President and communicate the President's directives."

Fisher also addressed the bureaucratic structure of DOGE - officially the U.S. DOGE Service, a new name for the old U.S. Digital Service - which he said is "a component of the Executive Office of the President." Formally, Musk is a temporary employee of the White House, which is separate from both the U.S. DOGE Service and the U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization within USDS that is in charge of current DOGE activities. "Mr. Musk is not the U.S. DOGE Service Administrator," Fisher said. He did not say who is running the effort.

Asked about Musk's official role, Trump said he had no concerns about it. "Elon is, to me, a patriot," he told reporters Monday. "So, you know, you could call him an employee, you could call him a consultant, you could call him whatever you want."

Trump also said that he has asked Musk who the people on the DOGE team are. "He said they're super brilliant computer people and they love the country," Trump said. "It's simple."

The bottom line: The announcement does not mean that Musk isn't running DOGE on an informal basis, as many statements by Trump and Musk suggest, but it does indicate that the Trump administration is seeking to formally distance Musk from the project, possibly to avoid many of the legal issues that could arise from his involvement. At a hearing Monday, a Justice Department lawyer said all federal layoffs have been executed by internal staff. At least one outstanding lawsuit continues to probe the issue, and we may soon learn whether Musk's reign as the informal DOGE chief presents any serious issues for the Trump administration's first major effort to transform the federal government.

Senate to Take the Lead on Budget Plan

The Senate plans to vote this week on a roughly $340 billion budget blueprint that would provide a major spending boost for some of President Trump's top agenda items, including border security and the military.

Put forth by Senate Budget Committee Chair Lindsey Graham, the proposal provides an alternative to the House's plan of passing one massive budget bill that includes spending boosts but also extensive tax reform. Worried about getting bogged down in the details of tax policy, the Senate wants to push those elements to a second bill later in the year.

"It's time to act on the decisive mandate the American people gave to President Trump in November," Senate Majority Leader John Thune wrote on social media Tuesday. "Securing the border, rebuilding our defense, and unleashing American energy. That starts this week with passing Chairman @LindseyGrahamSC's budget."

Bringing the Graham proposal to a vote would give the Senate the lead in the effort. The House advanced its version of the bill out of committee last week, but there are grumblings of concern about spending cuts included in the package. Speaker Mike Johnson said he intends to vote on the bill next week, following this week's House recess, but the extremely narrow margin of control for Republicans raises the odds that the bill falls short.

Bringing the Senate plan up for a vote could take some time. The bill would require up to 50 hours of debate, setting the stage for a "vote-a-rama" in which there are an unlimited number of votes on potential amendments. The process gives the opposition party a chance to force lawmakers to take public stands on thorny issues, but it cannot derail the process.

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