What Was the Doge Social Security Scandal? A Full Breakdown
Quick Summary
In a significant reversal, the Trump administration has admitted that a special cost-cutting team called "Doge," led by Elon Musk, improperly accessed and shared Americans' social security data, confirming a whistleblower's earlier warnings and prompting immediate calls for prosecution. A Department of Justice court filing revealed that the "department of government efficiency" (Doge) made a secret data-sharing deal with a political advocacy group to uncover supposed voter fraud to help overturn election results. The Social Security Administration (SSA), which previously insisted no data was compromised, now admits it was unaware of the deal and has referred two possible Hatch Act violations for investigation. The filing confirms the team used an unauthorized Cloudflare server to share data and that one staffer sent an encrypted file believed to contain the names and addresses of 1,000 people to a senior adviser. This admission comes amid a lawsuit to block Doge's access, with further revelations showing the team had far broader system access than initially disclosed and continued searching for personal information even after access was supposedly cut. This scandal follows earlier reports of Doge secretly recording and monitoring federal employees, ultimately failing to find any widespread fraud while creating its own major data privacy crisis.
In a major reversal, the Trump administration has admitted that a special cost-cutting team, led by Elon Musk and known as "Doge," improperly accessed and shared the social security data of countless...
In a major reversal, the Trump administration has admitted that a special cost-cutting team, led by Elon Musk and known as "Doge," improperly accessed and shared the social security data of countless Americans. A court filing from the Department of Justice on Friday finally confirmed what a whistleblower warned about months ago, triggering immediate calls for prosecution.
The court documents reveal a troubling picture. It turns out a member of the Doge team, short for the "department of government efficiency," signed a secret data-sharing deal back in March with a political advocacy group. This group was focused on digging up supposed voter fraud to help overturn election results in several states.
The Social Security Administration (SSA) told the court it had no idea this was happening until a separate review in November. The agency has now flagged two possible violations of the Hatch Act—which stops federal employees from getting involved in political campaigns—and sent them to the Office of Special Counsel for a full investigation.
The filing also noted that a review of Doge's activities from October 2025 onward showed their "communications, use of data, and other actions... were potentially outside of SSA policy." It also confirmed that the team used an unauthorized third-party server, Cloudflare, to share data. The SSA admits it can't say for sure what information was sent or if it's still sitting on that server.
In one particularly alarming instance, a Doge staffer sent an encrypted, password-protected file to Steve Davis, a senior adviser for the operation. Officials believe the file contains the names and addresses of about 1,000 people, pulled directly from social security systems. So far, they haven't been able to get into the file to see what's inside.
This is a complete turnaround from the SSA's previous position. For months, the agency insisted there was no evidence that Doge had compromised anyone's personal information. As recently as August, after former chief data officer Charles Borges told Congress that Doge was storing American data in an insecure environment, an SSA spokesperson flatly stated the agency was "not aware of any compromise to this environment."
These new disclosures are part of a lawsuit filed in February by unions and an advocacy group trying to block Doge from accessing social security data. A federal judge had initially put a temporary stop to it, calling Doge's work a "fishing expedition... based on little more than suspicion," but the supreme court later lifted the ban.
Now, Democratic Representatives John Larson and Richard Neal are demanding legal action. "The DOGE appointees engaged in this scheme... must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law for these abhorrent violations of the public trust," they said in a joint statement. "Today, we learned alarming news that proves the brave whistleblower who came forward in August was right."
The court filing also revealed that one Doge team member was still running searches for personal information on the morning of March 24, even after the SSA thought it had already cut off their access. The last search was run around 9:30 a.m., and full access wasn't completely shut down until noon that day. On top of that, Doge members had been given access to far more systems than the agency initially let on, including employee records and shared workspaces that made it easy to pass data back and forth.
This isn't the first time Doge's tactics have raised red flags. Last April, more than two dozen federal employees told the Guardian and What a Day that Doge operatives were secretly recording meetings and using AI to monitor their computer activity for any signs of disloyalty. One employee said the atmosphere felt like being "in a horror film where you know something out there [wants] to kill you but you never know when or how or who it is."
In the end, the Doge operation, which Musk launched with a promise to root out massive social security fraud, found no evidence of widespread waste. Instead, it became the center of its own major data privacy scandal.