Elon Musk claimed at a rally in Wisconsin that President Joe Biden let millions of noncitizens collect Social Security numbers during his time in office. Elon brought charts, handed out $1 million checks, and used a packed town hall to accuse Biden of funneling taxpayer funds into what he called a broken system.
The rally happened just a day and a half before polls opened in a high-stakes state judicial election. The event grabbed national attention after Elon gave the money to two Wisconsin voters who signed a petition against “activist judges.” That petition followed a ruling from the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which refused to hear a case saying the giveaway was illegal.
After the checks, Elon brought up his DOGE associate Antonio Gracias to talk about what they uncovered inside the Social Security Administration. Behind them, a large slide appeared with the words “New Non-Citizen Social Security Numbers Issued.” Antonio explained what it meant.
“We started at the top of the system, mapping the whole system of Social Security to understand where all the fraud was,” Antonio said during the event. “But this is what jumped out at us. When we saw these numbers, we were like, ‘What is this?’”
Antonio said that between fiscal year 2021 and fiscal year 2025, noncitizens were issued Social Security numbers in growing numbers. In fiscal year 2024 alone, more than 2 million received them. The year before that, and even in fiscal year 2025 which began in October and runs through this September, the number was around 1 million each year.
“This literally blew us away,” Antonio said. “We went there to find fraud and we found this by accident.”
Elon’s Social Security overhaul may slow checks and support
Jason Fichtner, who served as deputy commissioner of the Social Security Administration under President George W. Bush, said things are getting risky. “Now I’m concerned that benefits could get disrupted,” he said. Jason said these new updates aren’t small tweaks—they could block people from getting help at all.
Jason joined Kathleen Romig, another former SSA official and now director of Social Security and disability policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, in a public op-ed. They wrote that 7,000 workers have been removed from the SSA, and six regional offices have been shut down.
That means fewer people to help, longer lines at field offices, and more bugs on the official SSA website. The phone line? It already had long waits before the layoffs. Now it’s worse.
Kathleen and Jason said this mess could hit people with disabilities hardest. Delays could leave them waiting so long they die before getting the money they’re owed. “The Social Security Administration is in crisis, and people’s benefits are at risk,” they wrote.
Jason also spoke about DOGE’s plan to wipe out COBOL, the old programming language that runs millions of lines of SSA code. DOGE wants to rebuild the entire system in a few months. Jason said that’s reckless. “If you start messing with the system’s code, that could impact those who are currently getting benefits now,” he said.
Normally, a change like that would take years. It would start with one state, then move out slowly to other regions. Jason said DOGE isn’t doing that. Instead, they’re forcing everything through in a tight window, with no time for test runs or slow rollouts.
Jason said he wasn’t too worried at first. He knew there were service delays, but he didn’t think people’s monthly checks were at risk. But now, with this COBOL plan moving full speed, he said it’s a whole new problem.
The Social Security Administration responded by email saying, “There is no validity to these reports.” The White House used the same exact words too, oddly enough.
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