- A former White House official says Elon Musk’s DOGE is destabilizing the Social Security Administration’s technology and operations, creating widespread access issues for millions of Americans. The agency has faced website crashes and overwhelmed call centers, leaving many struggling to resolve payment problems.
A former White House official says Elon Musk’s DOGE is undermining the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) technology and operations, making it harder for millions of Americans to access their benefits.
Julie Siegel, who served as deputy federal chief operating officer at the Office of Management and Budget under the Biden administration until January 2025, told Fortune that DOGE’s actions could be part of a broader effort to discredit the way that Social Security operates.
Since DOGE staffers entered SSA, some recipients have complained of long wait times on phone lines and website glitches, making it harder to resolve issues with payments or update personal information. The SSA website has crashed multiple times in the last 10 days, blocking millions from accessing their accounts.
The agency has also undergone a significant staff reduction, with further plans for the closure of local offices, and the agency’s phone system is struggling to handle the surge in calls, the Washington Post reported. All of this has resulted in worsening customer service, Siegel said, particularly affecting vulnerable groups like retirees and disabled Americans.
“Millions of Americans rely on Social Security for their most basic income,” Siegel told Fortune. “And at a most basic level, they can’t get through and they can’t get their benefits.”
Siegel blames staff cuts for some of the issues currently plaguing the Social Security Administration.
“You actually need actual human beings to operate the technology, and they keep firing people,” she said, adding under the current administration, “staffing is down and the technology is breaking,” which is resulting in a “lot of really angry customers.”
Siegel added the issues with the SAA’s technology were “foreseeable,” even for those without a background in tech.
“If you take it for granted that they’re sophisticated technologists, then this is totally foreseeable—you don’t break the old system without building the new system,” she said, adding system failures “can’t be a surprise.”
DOGE reportedly plans to go even further with its modernization efforts and overhaul much of the agency systems.
According to Wired, the cost-cutting team plans to rapidly migrate the Social Security Administration’s systems off COBOL, an outdated programming language, and onto a modern one like Java within months. Experts told the outlet this migration could lead to errors in payments, including people not receiving benefits at all.
Alex Jacquez, the chief of policy and advocacy at Groundwork Collaborative and former NEC official, told Fortune the situation was similar to Musk’s takeover of Twitter in 2022, but with more serious consequences for millions of Americans.
“This is exactly what happened when [Musk] took over Twitter and fired all the engineers; the website was glitching,” he said. “When you’re running a social media website, outages happen, and then the platform comes back up and nobody’s off any worse. But when you’re running a massive government bureaucracy, any kind of tinkering or changes in the code on the website could have serious ramifications for people who rely on these checks.”
DOGE’s Social Security overhaul
Musk and the DOGE team have accused the Social Security Administration of being engaged in widespread fraud, claiming, among other things, that tens of millions of dead people are erroneously receiving payments. This claim has been widely disputed by experts and former commissioners.
To tackle some of this so-called fraud and boost efficiency, DOGE has proposed several changes including enforcing stronger identity-proofing procedures, slashing headcount, and closing several field offices, something that has caused wait times to soar.
The changes have been criticized by some, including billionaire Mark Cuban, who called the move a “backdoor way to cut payments.” After widespread pressure from Democrats and experts, the agency announced on Wednesday it was postponing the rollout of the controversial anti-fraud measure by two weeks and reducing the number of applicants it will affect.
A privatization push
Critics, including Jacquez, told Fortune they are concerned the cuts and chaos may be part of a long-term plan to privatize Social Security, reducing its effectiveness and accessibility for Americans who rely on it.
“My view is that the ultimate goal here is what has been the holy grail for Republicans for decades now, which is to privatize the Social Security Administration and privatize Social Security,” he said. “There’s already a long list of things that Elon and the administration have basically floated as being services that they want the private sector to take over.”
In a Thursday interview, Musk defended DOGE’s work within the Social Security Administration.
The billionaire, who has become the public face of DOGE despite not being listed as its actual leader, said it was “quite achievable” to slash a trillion dollars in federal spending without impacting core services. He went on to claim Social Security recipients “will receive more money” thanks to their work.
But Siegel said she wasn’t convinced by Musk’s most recent argument.
“My view is that if you can’t receive your benefits, your benefits are being denied. Every hour you waste on hold on the phone or refreshing a broken website or in line at an overwhelmed walk-in site, your benefits are being reduced because of DOGE,” she said.
Representatives for the SAA did not immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment.
