According to data shared by Elon Musk, the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), in the Social Security Administration (SSA) database in the United States, more than 12 million individuals eligible to receive welfare benefits are listed as being over 120 years old.
When reviewing SSA records to identify potential waste or fraud, DOGE discovered this information.
On Monday, February 17th, Musk disclosed this news on his social media platform, X, and shared charts showing the distribution across age groups.
The charts revealed that within the SSA system, over 17 million centenarians were marked as alive and eligible for benefits, with over 12 million individuals claimed to be over 120 years old.
Additionally, over 1,000 people were listed as being between 220 and 229 years old.
One person was reportedly between 240 and 249 years old, while the system’s oldest individual was listed as older than the United States itself, over 360 years old.
According to the Guinness World Records, the oldest person in the world was the late Japanese woman Tomiko Itooka, who lived to be 116 years old.
Playfully, Musk wrote, “Maybe the movie ‘Twilight’ is real, and there are many vampires collecting Social Security funds.”
Data from the SSA also indicated that the number of eligible Social Security beneficiaries in the system exceeds 398 million, while the U.S. Census Bureau estimates the total U.S. population to be around 341 million.
Musk stated, “This could be the biggest fraud case in history.”
Currently, DOGE is conducting an in-depth investigation of federal agency records and systems as part of its goal to increase government efficiency by cutting costs and eliminating institutional waste.
President Trump established this temporary agency on his first day in office, with the aim of achieving a $2 trillion reduction in federal spending by July 4, 2026, before its dissolution.
The White House reported that to date, DOGE has achieved total savings of up to $3.4 billion.
It’s important to note that the original article was titled “Database Lists 12 Million People Older Than 120 as Eligible for Social Security: Musk”.