DOJ Says Musk Team May Have Used Social Security Data for Election Plans, Putting DOGE Under Fire

Federal authorities are now admitting that a contentious government technology team associated with Elon Musk might have acted improperly while managing private Social Security information. In recently submitted court filings, the Justice Department revealed that two members of Musk’s DOGE team who were employed by the Social Security Administration had secret conversations with an advocacy group that aimed to “overturn election results in certain states.” Additionally, one of those team members signed a “Voter Data Agreement” that might have involved comparing Social Security data with state voter rolls.

Senior Justice Department official Elizabeth Shapiro disclosed that SSA reported both DOGE employees for possible violations of the Hatch Act, which forbids federal employees from engaging in political activity while in their jobs. Her revelation was included in a series of “corrections” that were made following her prior evidence in court cases involving DOGE’s access to Social Security information.

Additionally, those revisions admitted that DOGE employees may have viewed material that courts had specifically prohibited them from reading at the time and that they transferred data using unapproved third-party servers. SSA’s former assertion that DOGE’s mandate was restricted to detecting fraud, waste, and abuse while updating agency technology is complicated by these discoveries, according to Shapiro.

At the time of their creation, “SSA thought those statements were accurate, and they are largely still accurate,” Shapiro wrote. As of right now, there is no proof that SSA staff members other than the DOGE Team members engaged were aware of the correspondence with the advocacy group, she continued. They also had no knowledge of the “Voter Data Agreement.”

According to Shapiro, emails “suggest that DOGE Team members could have been asked to assist the advocacy group by accessing SSA data to match to the voter rolls,” even though investigators have not verified if data was truly transferred.

A senior DOGE adviser was copied on an email that contained a password-protected file containing sensitive information linked to almost 1,000 individuals, according to the petition. It is still unknown whether the file was ever accessed. In other cases, court restrictions banned DOGE members from accessing restricted Social Security profiles, but they were temporarily allowed to do so.

According to Shapiro, “it is unknown at this time whether any [private information] was accessed.”

The White House and SSA declined to comment as DOGE’s data methods come under increasing criticism.