Musk Wants Access to Your Data

Musk Wants Access to Your Data

Musk is arguing that the Social Security benefits system is rife with fraud and abuse. However, there is no independent confirmation of this fraud and abuse. On the contrary, independent audits have confirmed that improper payments are only 0.84% of total payments. And most of these improper payments are over-payments that SSA is working to retrieve. There is no evidence of massive fraud and abuse in the SSA system.

Musk wants to consolidate various federal data sources ... including Social Security, tax records, and medical information ... into one centralized system. It seems like a good idea but there are some very serious practical issues.

I was personally involved in the 1980s in a massive effort to redo and upgrade the Social Security software. This project, led by Ross Perot’s EDS and the accounting firm of Deloite, cost about $700 million in total.

I joined the project as a subcontractor with expertise in automating software. The first thing I did was to assess the degree of complexity we had to deal with. The law, as enacted by Congress and promulgated by the Executive branch, that the Social Security software was implementing was maintained as a shelf of loose-leaf binders ... 12 feet long. That sounded pretty complex ... but pales in comparison to the effort to keep the books updated. It required a half-time clerk to do nothing except update these binders with the changes that Congress and the executive branch were continually making. Please understand ...the social security software was implementing rules that required a stack of paper 12 feet tall that was almost continually changing. The 178 billion dollars in checks sent out each month had to follow the rules in that 12 foot book.

The second thing I did was to see how much software code the Social Security Administration was using. I forget how many million lines of code there were, but I calculated how many paper-back books it would take to write it all down ... those books of code would fill a bookcase eight feet wide and eight feet tall. I realized then that it was a small miracle that the checks got sent out each month ... and that we should all be grateful to the very talented and dedicated team of SSA programmers and analysts, some of whom spent nights and weekends at their jobs when substantial rule changes occurred.

This Social Security software situation hasn’t changed very much in the intervening years, especially the complexity of the laws that the code has to deal with. While I am not at all familiar with the other agency’s software, it seems likely that Congress and the Executive branch have also made their situations complex.

Musk has suggested that they could rewrite the software in a matter of months ... I can tell you that is not possible. How long do you think it takes to read a book 12 feet thick ... and how much longer would it take to really grasp the interconnections among the many parts, especially when much of it is written in mind-numbing lawyerese. After understanding the rules, comes the task of designing software to implement the rules. Fiinally, the code must be written. And if the code is incorrect, the checks either don’t go out or they send incorrect amounts to people. This is at best a several -years long task.

A federal judge has issued an injunction (April 2025) blocking Musk’s attempt to access personal Social Security data. The Trump administration has appealed this ruling ... and apparently the Supreme Court is considering the case.

As I said above, the Social Security software is quite complex. Musk and his DOGE folks have demonstrated a strong tendency to take a wrecking ball approach to federal agencies. If they are allowed to do the same with the Social Security software, you might not get your retirement checks. And the Social Security Administration pays out about 168 billion each month. If those checks failed to go out for even one month, it might well trigger a world-wide depression ... and it certainly would not be good for retirees.

The Supreme court case is about allowing Elon Musk and DOGE access to your private information. Elon Musk is a private citizen, whose only authority comes from an executive order that is the subject of numerous court challenges, including one filed by 14 state attorney generals.

How this all plays out is impossible to predict ... but your personal privacy and information is at the center of all of it.