Elon Musk and Social Security’s Effort to Curb Illegal Immigration

One hallmark of Elon Musk’s 12 weeks in government has been his focus on Social Security.

He has sent one of his closest advisers to work at the Social Security Administration. He has falsely insisted that the program is rife with fraud. And he has depicted the entitlement as a tool — a “giant magnet,” to be specific — that he says entices illegal immigrants to come to the United States.

That last part has turned Social Security into a major focal point of Musk’s unfounded belief that Democrats have allowed immigrants into the United States as part of a scheme to tilt the electorate in their favor.

A team of my colleagues has reported that Musk is now driving big changes at the Social Security Administration that have braided aspects of his rhetoric about the agency directly into policy. The agency is placing certain immigrants — people who are very much alive — on the agency’s list of dead people, cutting them off from crucial financial services in an effort to push them to leave the country.

I called my colleague Alexandra Berzon to talk about this reporting, and she explained that, according to the White House’s own accounting, the targeted migrants did not receive much in the way of government benefits — and none of them received Social Security.

The new effort, she explained, is less about cost-cutting than it is about getting the Social Security Administration into the business of immigration enforcement, a push that has deeply alarmed current and former employees of the agency.

Explain to me what you and our colleagues discovered when reporting this story. How is the Trump administration using Social Security as a tool for immigration policy?

Social Security maintains something called the “death master file,” which helps to ensure that Social Security numbers for the deceased aren’t used for identity fraud and that sort of thing. Every year, they add around three million people to this list, whose deaths they track with the help of state records, funeral homes and people’s families. This list is also distributed by the Department of Commerce, and it ends up being used by financial institutions, mortgage companies, insurance companies, credit card companies, banks and others, who often close or suspend the accounts of people believed to be dead. When people mistakenly end up on this list, it’s a nightmare.

Now, the Department of Homeland Security is sending certain migrants’ names over to the Social Security Administration to be added to the list as if they were dead. They think this will make people’s lives so difficult that they will self-deport. They are renaming the “death master file” the “ineligible master file.”

Who, exactly, has been added to this list?

The original memos that set this up — from Kristi Noem, the secretary of homeland security, to Leland Dudek, the acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration — described two categories of people: migrants who are suspected terrorists and those who are convicted criminals. We learned this week that 6,300 people who the government says fell under those categories were added to this file. These were people allowed into the country temporarily and given Social Security numbers, but who have now had their status revoked. Officials said the effort could broaden to include others in the country without authorization.

Musk has talked a lot about the idea that illegal immigrants are drawn to this country to get Social Security benefits. Is there any evidence that the migrants on this list were actually drawing Social Security benefits?

Immigrants pay into the Social Security system, and they typically don’t get benefits from it, so they’re actually contributing to the system. It’s the opposite of what Musk has said. There are some limited benefits that certain immigrants — those who have been authorized to work, and who have Social Security numbers as a result — are eligible for after certain periods of time. But, as far as we know, these are not huge numbers.

Late yesterday, a White House official sent us a list of the benefits those people had received. They said that around 1,000 people out of this group of about 6,300 collected Medicaid, unemployment benefits or student loans. When we added it all up, those benefits averaged to about $600 per person among those who had gotten the benefits — none of which were Social Security benefits.

So it’s true that some of the people placed on the death list were drawing federal benefits. But there is no evidence to suggest that these people were actually drawing on the coffers of Social Security.

Our conversation was edited for length and clarity.

AGENCY REPORT

What would Trump do with a big cost-cutting opportunity favored by Biden?

Over the last two years, health executives have identified what they see as a prime target for cost-cutting in Medicaid: a little-known medical product called a skin substitute. I asked Sarah Kliff, an investigative health care reporter at The New York Times, to explain how the Trump administration is approaching an opportunity to reduce government spending on that product.

Skin substitutes are small bandages often made out of dehydrated placentas. There is some evidence that they can help heal certain stubborn sores, particularly those that people with diabetes can get on the soles of their feet.

Medicare reimbursement for skin substitutes has soared over the last few years, from $1.6 billion in 2022 to $10 billion in 2024.

My colleague Katie Thomas and I reported this week on one driver of the spending growth: Doctors have strong financial incentives to use skin substitutes. Companies sell those bandages to doctors at a discount, but the doctors charge Medicare the full sticker price and pocket the difference. We had legal experts review some contracts, and they spotted language that could conceal kickbacks.

Katie and I wrote our story in part because the Trump administration was facing a key deadline. Medicare had to decide by April 13 whether to carry out a Biden-era plan to restrict skin substitute coverage. The plan would limit coverage for products that did not have good evidence showing they worked.

When we wrote our story, we weren’t sure where the administration would land. On the one hand, we knew that President Trump had criticized the Biden plan on social media, and that his campaign had received a large donation from one of the biggest skin substitute companies. On the other, we knew that he has made slashing government spending a marquee goal of his second administration. Health-cost experts told us that skin substitutes could represent the largest example of waste in Medicare’s history.

This morning, we got our answer: The Trump administration will not put the Biden rule into effect. Instead, they will delay it until 2026, leaving dozens of unproven products on the market and eligible for Medicare reimbursement.

— Sarah Kliff

MEANWHILE on X

Defending a Musk defender

Musk has been relatively quiet on X today, by his standards. But my colleague Ryan Mac noticed that he used his account to promote a Trump ally who has stood up for him. Here’s more.

For weeks, Ed Martin, a far-right election denier whom Trump nominated to be the U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., has defended the actions of Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency.

Musk has reciprocated the favor.

On Friday, the billionaire used his X account to push the Senate to approve Martin’s nomination, replying to another post with, “Confirm Ed Martin!” It’s the second time in less than a month that he’s voiced his support for Martin, who has been an advocate for the Jan. 6 rioters and is in line to lead the office that prosecuted them.

Martin has portrayed himself as a willing attack dog for Musk and DOGE. In February, he posted a letter to his X account addressed to Musk in which he threatened to “pursue any and all legal action against anyone” who impeded Musk’s work with DOGE. That was after news organizations began to disclose the identities of some of the people involved with the cost-cutting task force.

Four days later, Martin posted a second note saying that he would open an inquiry after receiving a referral from Musk “of individuals and networks who appear to be stealing government property and/or threatening government employees.”

As Martin awaits confirmation, Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee who are pushing to hold a hearing on his nomination have cited his letters to Musk as justification.

— Ryan Mac

BY THE NUMBERS

$150 billion

That’s the amount of government spending that Musk, during a meeting of Trump’s cabinet yesterday, said DOGE was on pace to cut from the federal budget in one budget year. His previous stated goal was $1 trillion in cuts.