Social Security data shows millions more eligible recipients than living Americans, Musk reveals

Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) chief Elon Musk on Monday posted Social Security data revealing the existence of tens of millions of eligible recipients beyond the total population of the United Sates.

"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," he quipped, referencing a popular teenage fantasy novel series.

The spreadsheet of data showed millions of recipients over the age of 120, including one between the ages of 360 and 369. In total, the data accounting for nearly 395 million people. The population of the U.S. is roughly 335 million people, meaning that about 60 million Social Security numbers were listed as eligible beyond the living population.

"Yes, there are FAR more 'eligible' social security numbers than there are citizens in the USA," he responded to someone highlighting the disparity. "This might be the biggest fraud in history."

The total population, notably includes illegal people who may not be eligible recipients and therefore the gap between that figure and current records may be even larger.

Notably, an Office of the Inspector General report from July 2023 that the New York Post highlighted confirmed that 18.9 million individual numbers corresponded to persons born in 1920 or earlier, but that most did not receive payments from the Social Security Administration.