Elon Musk’s chart doesn’t prove millions of centenarians fraudulently get Social Security benefits

Elon Musk, the billionaire advising President Donald Trump how to cut federal spending, is taking aim at the Social Security Administration and giving the impression millions of implausibly old people may be getting benefits payments.

“According to the Social Security database, these are the numbers of people in each age bucket with the death field set to FALSE! Maybe Twilight is real and there are a lot of vampires collecting Social Security,” Musk wrote Feb. 16 on X, with an accompanying chart.

(Screenshot from X)

The chart, which shows age brackets encompassing infants to 369 years old, adds up to more than 398 million people — more than the estimated 341 million U.S. population. When users pointed this out, Musk said, “Yes, there are FAR more ‘eligible’ social security numbers than there are citizens in the USA. This might be the biggest fraud in history.”

We do not know which Social Security database Musk was referring to, nor did he specify in his post. 

As he signed executive orders Feb. 18, President Donald Trump nodded to Musk’s data, saying that “if you take all of those millions of people off Social Security, all of a sudden, we have a very powerful Social Security with people that are 80 and 70 and 90, but not 200 years old.”

Musk’s chart could have people believe that more than 20.7 million people ages 100 and older are receiving Social Security benefits. 

Indeed, on Facebook, a Trump fan page with more than 4 million followers referenced Musk’s tweet and said, “Elon Musk discovers millions over the age of 140 are receiving social security! 695 recipients are over 180 – 189.” 

This is unproven.

About 68 million people receive Social Security benefits. As of December, there were about 89,000 retired worker beneficiaries ages 99 or older. 

Government databases may classify someone as 150 years old for reasons peculiar to the complex Social Security database or because of missing data, but that doesn’t mean that millions of payments are delivered fraudulently to people with implausible ages. 

The Social Security Administration inspector general in 2021 found $298 million in payments after death to some 24,000 beneficiaries from 1998 to 2019. (The government recovered about $84 million, the report said.)

Social Security Administration Acting Commissioner Lee Dudek said in a Feb. 19 statement that people older than 100 in the Social Security database “are not necessarily receiving benefits.” 

We asked the White House press office to connect us with Musk or the Department of Government Efficiency and received no response. We also emailed press contacts at Musk’s companies SpaceX and X and did not hear back.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt pointed PolitiFact to a 2024 inspector general report that found the Social Security Administration sent almost $71.8 billion in improper payments from fiscal years 2015 to 2022, which includes Trump’s first term. That is less than 1% of overall payments in that timeframe. 

Improper payments can be underpayments or overpayments. They can happen because of beneficiaries’ failure to report necessary information or the administration’s failure to update records, the 2024 inspector general report said. Improper payments are a longstanding concern for the Social Security Administration, though they represent a small share of all payments.

Government audits show fraud potential, not historical mass fraud

Under a 1978 law, inspectors general audit the federal government looking for fraud, waste and abuse. They are required to provide semiannual reports to Congress and report to agency heads if they find egregious problems. 

Two inspector general audits — in 2015 and 2023 — examined Social Security number data for millions of implausibly old people listed in the Social Security database. Both audits found that “almost none” associated with those numbers were receiving payments.

The 2015 audit warned that missing death information could lead to identity fraud or erroneous payments by federal agencies. That audit found that of a sample of more than 6 million Social Security number holders, “only 13 beneficiaries were likely age 112 or older.” 

The 2023 audit found approximately 18.9 million people born in 1920 or earlier who did not have death information on their Social Security record. But “almost none” were being sent payments.

The audit found that the people were likely dead, since they were 100 or older, had no earnings in the past 50 years and received no payments.

In reports from 2001 to 2024, the Social Security Administration inspector general “identified over $700 million in improper payments tied to death information not being within (Social Security Administration’s) records,” for 12,979 beneficiaries, said Rebecca Rose, spokesperson for the Social Security Administration inspector general.

Lack of death dates creates potential for improper payments

Experts said that Social Security fraud happens, but balked at the idea that millions of dead people were receiving benefits. 

“Any program this large probably has some level of fraud,” said Jeffrey R. Brown, a professor of finance at the University of Illinois. “But I am quite confident that the level of fraud is quite small relative to the size of the program and that Elon is unquestionably wrong to suggest it is the biggest fraud in history.”

Ronald Gunia, a retired longtime director in the Social Security Administration Office of Inspector General who worked on the 2015 and 2023 reports, said that incomplete data can increase chances for fraud, and that Musk was correct to highlight data problems that remain unresolved despite years of audits. 

“Very few of those people are getting benefits, but their Social Security numbers are live and valid, and that’s the potential,” Gunia said. 

The federal government has taken some steps to resolve incomplete death records, and there are systems in place to block payments to anyone born more than 115 years ago.

PolitiFact researcher Caryn Baird and Chief Correspondent Louis Jacobson contributed to this report.

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