DOGE employee stole Social Security data and put it on a thumb drive, report says

A former employee of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency reportedly stole Americans’ personal data from the U.S. Social Security Administration and stored it on a thumb drive, according to a whistleblower complaint reported by The Washington Post.

The former DOGE software engineer told co-workers at his new job that he “possessed two tightly restricted databases of U.S. citizens’ information” and was planning to use the information at his new company, according to the report, which added that the Social Security Administration’s inspector general is investigating the whistleblower complaint.

The former DOGE employee, whom The Washington Post did not name, worked at the Social Security Administration last year. In October he then left to work at a government contractor, where he told colleagues that he had obtained two databases, called “Numident” and the “Master Death File,” according to The Post, which reported that the databases could include records for “more than 500 million living and dead Americans, including Social Security numbers, places and dates of birth, citizenship, race and ethnicity, and parents’ names.”

The man also reportedly claimed that he previously had unrestricted “God-level” access to the SSA’s systems.

A spokesperson for the Social Security Administration, which is still under control by DOGE, denied that a former employee stole data on U.S. citizens. The spokesperson said the Washington Post was “desperate for clicks and eager to publish fake news to scare seniors.” The inspector general’s office; which is independent from the Trump administration, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

This is the latest case of a suspected breach of Americans’ personal data linked to DOGE and its incursion into the Social Security Administration. In January, two DOGE members were suspected of accessing and sharing Social Security numbers that were off-limits to them as part of an effort to aid an advocacy group that intended to “overturn election results in certain States,” according to a lawsuit. 

Another whistleblower within the agency last year said that DOGE members put Americans at risk by uploading hundreds of millions of Social Security records to a vulnerable cloud server. Also last year, a judge blocked DOGE from accessing SSA systems, accusing the Musk-led agency of being “essentially engaged in a fishing expedition” in search of fraud. 

Several DOGE members were installed at the Social Security Administration after Trump took office last year. According to The Washington Post, at least a dozen DOGE employees, most of them technical staff or engineers, worked at the agency, though their actual roles and activities were not communicated to the rest of the staff.