U.S. Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) head Elon Musk claimed that improbably old people — including people "about 150 years old" and more than 220 years old — were "collecting Social Security" payments, implying that widespread fraud was occurring in that program, which provides income for retirees, people with disabilities and families with a deceased spouse or parent.
While an audit published in 2023 found that the central Social Security database, known as the Numident, does include 18.9 million people born before 1920 who do not have death information on record — making them more than 100 years old if alive — only 44,000 of them were receiving Social Security Administration (SSA) payments.
The auditors wrote that the Numident has spotty death records because these individuals died before the use of electronic death reporting. While the agency's missing death records may make it more vulnerable to fraud, the small number of people aged 100 or older actually collecting payments suggests it is not a widespread issue.
An earlier audit, published in 2015, determined that while 6.5 million people in the Numident database were found to be above the age of 112, payments were only sent to 266 beneficiaries, most of whom records showed were likely actually under the age of 112. However, that audit also found thousands of potentially fraudulent uses of Social Security numbers connected to improbably old people.
While the SSA has undergone some efforts to update its records, officials decided not to implement recommendations from the auditors because so few people above the age of 112 receive payments and the cost of fixing the Numident's records was not worth the benefits.
By Jack Izzo & Grace Deng
On Feb. 11, 2025, Elon Musk, tech billionaire and head of U.S. President Donald Trump's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) initiative, claimed during a news conference at the White House that a "cursory examination of Social Security" showed "people in there that are about 150 years old."
Days later, Musk posted a screenshot on X (archived), the social media platform he owns, allegedly showing people marked as alive in the Social Security database at impossibly high ages, including more than 1,000 individuals above the age of 220 and one person aged between 360 and 369 years old.
"Maybe Twilight is real and there are a lot of vampires collecting Social Security," Musk said, implying that the graph showed improbably old people receiving government payments through the Social Security program, which provides income for American retirees, people with disabilities and families with a deceased spouse or parent.
Musk's claims were spread by other X users, including one of the president's sons, Donald Trump Jr., while a related rumor also circulated online suggesting Musk discovered millions of improbably old people collecting Social Security benefits.
The oldest living person in recorded history was reportedly a French woman named Jeanne Calment, who is believed to have lived to 122 (archived). Therefore, if these claims were true, they would likely point to some kind of fraud.
However, these claims need context. The Social Security Administration (SSA) does more than just send out payments — it is also in charge of registering unique Social Security numbers and their related information for nearly every legal resident in the U.S. The government and businesses then use these numbers to identify individuals and to track their financial records.
A government audit published in July 2023 showed that as of 2020, there were 18.9 million registrants in the central SSA database born in or before 1920 whose death record information was not properly recorded, suggesting they would be more than 100 years old if still alive.
However, just because some people were improperly recorded as "alive" did not mean they were receiving payments from the SSA. While the missing death records could make the agency vulnerable to fraud, the same audit found that "almost none" of the registrants born in or before 1920 were receiving benefits at the time of the report. These records were likely spotty because the individuals died before the use of electronic death reporting, the auditors wrote.
DOGE and the SSA did not return answers to our inquiries as of this writing. However, we will update this article if they reply.
SSA's database
The SSA's central database is called the Numident, or "Numerical Identification System." The Numident is the "numerically-ordered master file" of all assigned Social Security numbers. It is also used to create the SSA's "full file of death information," referred to as the Death Master File (DMF). The DMF is then shared with federal agencies that pay people's benefits.
The 2023 audit by the SSA's Office of the Inspector General investigated Social Security number holders older than 100 who did not have death information recorded but were in the Numident. This audit, which used data updated as of December 2020, determined that 18.9 million number holders were born in or before 1920 and did not have death information in the Numident, meaning they were technically recorded as alive in the administration's system.
But the same audit found that approximately 98% of these number holders were not receiving SSA payments and had not reported earnings to the SSA in the past 50 years. In other words, only 44,000 were receiving payments. In 2020, at the time of this audit's research, about 80,000 Americans were centenarians, according to the Pew Research Center, a self-described nonpartisan fact tank "that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world." The center said it reached the estimate by analyzing Census Bureau data; however, it was not immediately clear which Census Bureau data the center was referring to.
Musk's X post suggests that roughly 20.8 million people aged 100 or older were registered in the SSA database. Given that he posted this several years after auditors collected data for the 2023 report, it is possible that his post correctly shows how many people aged 100 or older do not have death information recorded in the Numident, rather than the number of improbably old people collecting Social Security benefits. However, it was not possible to confirm this without comment from the SSA.
Missing death records explained
It is possible that some of the 44,000 number holders — who were born in or before 1920 at the time of the audit and were receiving SSA benefits — are cases of fraud and listed as "about 150 years old" or even above 200, as Musk claimed.
The auditors wrote that the SSA's failure to keep updated death records leaves the agency and other federal agencies that use the Numident open to fraud. However, there were no specific examples presented in the audit of "150-year-old" fraudsters, nor was there any mention of systematic fraudulent activity uncovered by the auditors. SSA also acknowledged on its website that its death records were not comprehensive (emphasis theirs):
We collect death information to administer our programs. We receive death reports from many sources, including family members, funeral homes, financial institutions, postal authorities, States and other Federal agencies. It is important to note our records are not a comprehensive record of all deaths in the country.
Most of the number holders — about 10.9 million — older than 100 were born in 1899 or earlier and the auditors wrote that it is "likely SSA did not receive or record most of the 18.9 million individuals' death information primarily because the individuals died decades ago—before the use of electronic death reporting."
Furthermore, the audit noted that the Numident is not the only way the SSA keeps death records used to terminate payments to deceased Social Security recipients. Per the audit:
SSA terminated payments to approximately 623,000 beneficiaries and input death information in its payment records but did not input the death information on the Numident. For example, a retirement beneficiary born in 1917 died in April 2005. SSA terminated her payments and input her date of death in her payment record; however, SSA did not input the death information on the Numident.
A related 2015 audit
An earlier Office of the Inspector General audit by the SSA, published in March 2015, looked into individuals above the age of 112 with no death information recorded in the Numident and found 6.5 million people matching this description.
It is likely that the claim that Musk discovered 6.5 million people above the age of 112 collecting Social Security payments misrepresents the findings of this audit. While the report did find 6.5 million people with no death information above the age of 112 in the Numident, payments were only sent to 266 beneficiaries recorded as 112 or older.
In 253 of these cases, "discrepancies in SSA records indicated the beneficiary receiving payments was not actually born before June 16, 1901," thus making them younger than 112 as of June 15, 2013 (while published in 2015, the audit was conducted between November 2013 and September 2014).
Only 13 people who "were likely" above the age of 112 were still collecting payments, according to the audit, which also noted that as of 2015, only 35 known living individuals worldwide were aged 112 or older. The audit did, however, find some potential fraud:
We identified thousands of instances of potential identity theft or other fraud involving these SSNs. Specifically, we identified approximately $3.1 billion in earnings reported by employers and self-employed individuals using 66,920 SSNs although they were not the actual numberholder.
Why SSA didn't fix the issue
After the 2015 audit revealed the scope of the SSA's missing death records, SSA officials improved its systems and used historical death information already in its records to "post dates of death to over 10.7 million Numident records, including over 6 million records for individuals over age 112."
However, the auditors wrote that SSA officials "disagreed" with the auditors' recommendations to fix the Numident death information records, which included updating its records using death data already held by federal and state governments and developing a way to add death information to the millions of number holders not receiving payments and identified by the audit. They added that "correcting records for non-beneficiaries would divert resources from work necessary to administer and manage its programs."
The officials said that the 18.9 million number holders above the age of 100 without recorded death information represent a small fraction of the 531 million unique Social Security numbers issued by the administration and
that "almost none" of the 18.9 million currently receive SSA payments.
SSA also determined that the "options would be costly to implement, would be of little benefit for the agency, would largely duplicate information already available to data exchange consumers and would create cost for the states and other data exchange partners."
However, the auditors said that SSA's decision not to establish "controls to annotate death information" for the records of Social Security number holders who "exceeded maximum reasonable life expectancies" means identity thieves could use these SSNs to create fake identities, open bank accounts or obtain employment, credit, government benefits or private insurance.
"We acknowledge that almost none of the number holders discussed in the report currently receive SSA payments," the auditors wrote. "However, SSA issued each of these individuals a valid SSN and these SSNs could allow for a wide range of potential abuse."
Improving the records system, the auditors said, could help alert federal agencies to the "suspect nature of activities occurring under these SSNs."
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