Americans can finally call the Social Security Administration (SSA) to get their benefits after a month of mayhem brought on by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Musk, who has led a crusade to slash federal spending and eliminate “bloat,” urged the SSA to do away with phone-based claim services, which allow Americans to call in and speak with an SSA representative to apply for benefits or process a claim. On March 29, the SSA barred customers from changing their bank information by phone to curb identity fraud.
The announcement caused mass panic. Long lines snaked around the SSA field offices as elderly and disabled Americans waited to show their driver’s licenses to staff. Phone wait times skyrocketed, and the SSA website repeatedly crashed after Musk and his DOGE goons launched untested software.
Now, Musk has been forced to reverse course.
Lawmakers pled with Musk to put an end to the insanity, and on Wednesday, The Washington Post confirmed they had succeeded: SSA leaders steamrolled Musk’s plans and reinstated all teleclaim services. A Social Security spokesperson confirmed to the Post that this was true, despite a vague X post that didn’t announce the rebirth of the teleclaim service outright.
The Daily Beast has reached out to Musk and the Trump administration for comment.
A memo from SSA acting deputy commissioner Doris Diaz to acting commissioner Leland Dudek also announced a new tele-fraud processing system that might produce false fraud positives, but the “risk is lower than sending 40,000-plus teleclaims customers to field offices per week for in-person identity proofing.”
Musk’s tele-fraud conspiracies were pushed aside to make way for an influx of Americans hoping to set up direct-deposit payments on the phone. The SSA determined that it could vet people for fraud on the phone, effectively killing off Musk’s venture and relieving the stress of flustered beneficiaries.
The teleclaim restoration is a big reassurance for older and disabled Americans who may not be able to navigate technology or access an in-person location.
The reverse order comes as Musk attacked the SSA, which provides Medicare claims and retirement, survivor, and disability benefits for 73 million Americans.
Even though President Donald Trump told NBC News post-election that “we’re not touching Social Security,” Musk has attempted to dismantle the agency he calls “the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time.” He also said that SSA is the “big one to eliminate” and plans to cut 7,000 jobs and close offices across the country.
Vice President JD Vance also falsely claimed that 40 percent of the people who call Social Security are “committing fraud,” misinterpreting a statistic that instead revealed that only 0.00625 percent of Social Security benefits are lost to direct-deposit fraud each year, with 0.0025 percent lost through calls.
Social Security has been called the “third rail” of American politics. In other words, touch it, and you die. But it has proven a lot harder for Musk to destroy the SSA than the other agencies he’s taken a chainsaw to, including the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Department of Education.
The Monday memo said that the agency will implement a new fraud-detecting tool to “flag suspect teleclaims based on known, common characteristics of fraudulent claims.” Individuals will only have to show up to an SSA office in person if their call raises suspicion. The tool will launch by April 14.
While the new service might lead to “false-positive flagging of legitimate teleclaims,” the Monday memo insisted that it’s still a better option than forcing old or disabled customers to visit in person.
The SSA receives about 9.5 million claims each year, about 40 percent over the phone. Amid last month’s mayhem, some seniors prepared to drive hours to access their Social Security benefits, with 6 million living more than 45 miles roundtrip from a field office. Some individuals in remote locations, including 60,000 in Alaska, did not have internet access at all, and phoning in is their only reliable option.
