Americans’ Social Security info reportedly pilfered by ex-DOGE employee

Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency had one of its former employees reported by The Washington Post to have allegedly pilfered a pair of Social Security Administration databases with Americans' sensitive data, which were then placed on a USB drive, according to TechCrunch.

The theft of restricted databases, which could include over 500 million living and dead U.S. citizens' Social Security numbers, citizenship, and other personal information, was then touted by the ex-DOGE employee designated at SSA after he transferred to a government contractor in October, noted a whistleblower complaint, which The Post said is already being investigated by the SSA Office of the Inspector General.

While the breach of SSA data has been denied by an agency spokesperson, who dismissed The Post's report as clickbait and "fake news," such a development is not without precedent, with DOGE employees previously accused of illegally accessing and sharing SSNs. Other employees at the agency were also alleged to have stored hundreds of millions of Americans' Social Security records on an unsecured cloud server.