NYT also reviewed previously unreported emails that showed how #DOGE members used the agency for #political aims, directing Dudek to cancel important contracts in #Maine after the state’s governor, a #Democrat, clashed w/ #Trump.

This account of DOGE’s #SocialSecurity takeover is based on interviews with >70 current & fmr employees, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation, & a review of hundreds of pages of internal documents & court records.

#Musk’s deputies became so intent on their work at #SocialSecurity that they pushed employees to continue giving them access to sensitive agency data even after a federal judge demanded that DOGE’s access be cut off, acc/to 2 people…. #SCOTUS ruled this month that #DOGE’s access can resume.

#DOGE leaders pressured agency executives to hire a 21-year-old former INTERN at #Palantir, a #data analysis & #technology firm, & grant him #access to the #PersonalData of EVERY #SocialSecurity cardholder despite the executives’ concerns that he lacked sufficient training to handle such sensitive #information.

In response, #Musk’s team mobilized dozens of #SocialSecurity employees to *affirm* their views about fraud & began a project to ensure dead people were properly classified so they weren’t mistakenly paid — even though #DOGE officials acknowledged in an internal memo that payments were not being made in those cases.

The Times’s investigation found that #Musk became fixated on #SocialSecurity in early February after members of his team misread government spending data — a pivotal & previously unreported moment that #DOGE believed had exposed massive fraud inside the agency.

#Musk has left Washington amid a blowup with #Trump, & some of his top aides at #DOGE have also departed, leaving federal workers & the public to assess what Musk’s tornadolike path through Washington yielded. At #SocialSecurity, Musk’s efforts amount to a case study in what happened when his team of government novices ran a critical government agency through #misinformation & #socialmedia blasts.

Throughout the early months of this #Trump presidency, #Musk & his allies systematically built a false narrative of widespread fraud at the #SocialSecurity Admin based on misinterpreted data, using their claims to justify an aggressive effort to gain access to #PersonalInformation on millions of Americans, a NYT investigation has found.

That’s when #LelandDudek — plucked from a midlevel job only 6 weeks earlier to run #SocialSecurity because of his willingness to cooperate w/ Musk’s #DOGE — got an angry call from the White House, according to several people familiar w/the exchange.

“The number is 40%,” insisted Katie Miller, a top admin aide [#StephenMiller’s wife] who was working closely w/ #Musk, acc/to one of the people familiar w/the April 1 call. #Trump believed Musk, she said. “Do not contradict the president.”

@appassionato

I'm very much in favour of "security capitalism", esp. when it's about social security for all. I'm also a huge fan of data security and privacy.

@MalcolmNance This is related to a recent and much discussed event in Murfreesboro, #Tennessee. An elderly ‘brown’ man was sitting on a public bench near the antebellum Rutherford County Courthouse on the Public Square. An over-zealous policeman asked him what he was doing there, and to show him his #SocialSecurity card!

His son arrived and got involved. When he was asked where they were from, he said “#California , where our family has lived for 800 years!”