Busted: Report exposes Musk operatives who infiltrated Social Security Agency

Jake Johnson
14 March
FILE PHOTO: Elon Musk leaves after a meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Blair House, in Washington, D.C., U.S., February 13, 2025. REUTERS/Nathan Howard/File Photo

Despite his pledge of "maximum transparency," Elon Musk has gone to great lengths to obscure the names and activities of staffers working for his Department of Government Efficiency—even claiming at one point that it is illegal to publicly identify members of the advisory commission.

That didn't stop Wired from publishing a story on Thursday that names 10 DOGE operatives who have infiltrated the Social Security Administration, which is facing deep staffing cuts that advocates warn could impact the delivery of benefits.

The staffers, according to Wired, are Akash Bobba, Scott Coulter, Marko Elez, Luke Farritor, Antonio Gracias, Gautier Cole Killian, Jon Koval, Nikhil Rajpal, Payton Rehling, and Ethan Shaotran. The list "includes a number of young engineers whose presence at the SSA has not been reported."

"This team appears to be among the largest DOGE units deployed to any government agency," the outlet noted. "Many of them have worked or interned at Musk companies such as Tesla and SpaceX, and the majority of them have also appeared at other government agencies in recent weeks, as part of DOGE's incursion into the government."

Three of the DOGE staffers—Gracias, Koval, and Rehling—don't seem to have any prior government experience," Wired observed, "but Gracias does have a long history with Musk—he worked at Tesla for 14 years as a company director and helped Musk take the company public."

The details came amid widespread alarm and legal action over DOGE staffers' access to highly sensitive information at SSA, which administers benefits to tens of millions of Americans.

Bloombergreported Thursday that "at least seven DOGE staffers have been granted access to a database known as the Master File of Social Security Number Holders and SSN Applications, also known as Numident."

"They currently have read-only access as they try to connect the dots between Social Security numbers and possible fraudulent benefits," Bloomberg added.

Both Musk and President Donald Trump have falsely claimed in recent weeks that tens of millions of dead people are receiving Social Security benefits.

Wired reported that "one of the tasks the DOGE cohort will be assigned is how people identify themselves to access their benefit payments."

"Experts with decades of experience at the agency are now worried that DOGE operatives working across multiple agencies increases the risk of SSA data being shared outside of the agency, or that their inexperience will lead to them breaking systems entirely," the outlet added.

Leland Dudek, whom Trump installed as acting SSA commissioner last month, has acknowledged to senior agency staff that Musk's lieutenants are now effectively in the driver's seat at the department, making key decisions despite their lack of knowledge of SSA systems.

"Are we going to break something?" Dudek asked during a recent closed-door meeting with SSA staffers and advocates. "I don't know."

The new reporting on DOGE staffers' presence at SSA comes as Democratic lawmakers are demanding an investigation into Musk's activities at the agency amid mounting concerns that he wants to privatize Social Security.

In a letter to the Republican chair of the Senate Finance Committee earlier this week, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and other Democratic senators warned that DOGE staffers' "unfettered access" to SSA data raises "a profound risk of causing irreparable harm to the agency's systems and Americans' financial security."

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