Another top government official has been axed for refusing to give Elon Musk’s DOGE minions access to sensitive information about millions of Americans.
Michelle King, a 30-year veteran of the Social Security Administration, was serving as the agency’s acting head while the Senate considers President Donald Trump’s nominee for commissioner, Frank Bisignano.
But she was replaced over the weekend after members of Musk’s nebulous cost-cutting task force DOGE—which has been canceling government contracts, demanding access to personal and financial data, and attempting to purge the civil service—demanded access an in internal data system containing confidential information, ABC News reported.
The Social Security Administration holds vast records for millions of Americans, including their benefits information, detailed information about their families, and—if they’ve applied for disability benefits—all of their medical records, according to ABC.
It wasn’t clear if DOGE—which stands for “department” of government efficiency even though it’s not an official department subject to congressional oversight—ultimately accessed the records in question. King was replaced by Leland Dudek, who previously oversaw the SSA fraud investigation office, and then resigned.
Press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed in an interview with Fox News that Trump had unleashed Musk and DOGE on the Social Security Administration to “detect fraud.”
“They haven’t gone into the books yet, but they suspect tens of millions of deceased people who are receiving fraudulent Social Security payments,” she said, providing no explanation as to why they suspected such large-scale fraud.
She also said DOGE was looking for duplicate payments and trying to “protect the integrity of the system.” She didn’t say why they thought anyone would be receiving duplicate payments, or in what way the integrity of the system could be at risk.
King is the latest career civil servant to be pushed out after refusing to give Musk’s team access to private data, the New York Times reported. A top Treasury Department official was also forced to resign after denying DOGE access to the $5 trillion government payment system at the Bureau of the Fiscal Service.
In a statement, White House deputy press secretary Harrison Fields told ABC, “President Trump is committed to appointing the best and most qualified individuals who are dedicated to working on behalf of the American people, not to appease the bureaucracy that has failed them for far too long.”
DOGE reportedly plans to access sensitive information at the Internal Revenue Service next.
The team is staffed by Gen-Z engineers with no public auditing experience who Musk nevertheless claims are qualified to root out waste and fraud. They tend to be Musk acolytes, and some have shared social media posts from white supremacists and ultra-misogynists.
So far Musk claims to have “saved” taxpayers $55 billion, though it’s not clear if that amount is really just tracking all the contracts his team has unilaterally canceled, which could very well be illegal.
Several judges have issued restraining orders temporarily halting the contract cancellations and preventing DOGE members who haven’t been confirmed by the Senate from accessing American’s secret financial and personal data.
