Elizabeth Warren Torches DOGE's Social Security Fraud Claims Pointing At Internal Memo Discovery, Says 'Elon Musk, JD Vance, And Trump Are Lying'

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) accused Elon Musk, Vice President JD Vance and President Donald Trump of "lying about Social Security fraud" and pointing to internal Social Security Administration files that found "no significant fraud" in a recent X post.

What Happened: "This is a HUGE scandal. Elon Musk, JD Vance, and Trump are lying about Social Security fraud. Internal documents show DOGE found ‘no significant fraud' — but did slow retirement claim processing by 25%. Nothing efficient about making it harder for people to get their benefits," Warren wrote on X.

Warren was referring to a May 15 briefing obtained by Nextgov that reveals the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) flagged just two suspicious phone-based benefit changes out of more than 110,000 calls — an effective fraud rate of 0.0018 percent. Auditors concluded "no significant fraud has been detected," but the extra screening stretched average claim-processing times by roughly one-quarter.

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Vance told Fox viewers last month that "40 percent" of Social Security calls were fraudulent, a statement the Washington Post awarded Four Pinocchios. Trump, in a March address to Congress, repeated a debunked claim that checks were going to "people 150 years old," according to an account by WSJ. Musk amplified similar rumors on X, joking about "vampires collecting Social Security." Independent tallies by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities show less than 0.01 percent of last year's $1.5 trillion payout was lost to direct-deposit fraud.

Why It Matters: Musk has previously insisted that the fraud "could be billions" and cited DOGE's ongoing probe. The Social Security Administration noted its databases "are highly accurate" and that aging record glitches rarely translate into real payments.

Warren’s post on X also arrives after CBS and Axios reported that the House GOP's tax package would wipe out federal levies on tips and overtime pay and slash the corporate rate to 15 percent for U.S. manufacturers, delivering on several of Donald Trump's marquee campaign pledges. However, it drops his separate promise to exempt Social Security benefits from income tax, substituting instead a smaller $4,000 deduction for seniors.

Photo: OogImages/Shutterstock

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