DOGE employee stole Social Security data and thumbed it, report says

A former employee of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency allegedly stole Americans’ personal data from the U.S. Social Security Administration and stored it on a thumb drive, according to a whistleblower complaint the Washington Post reports.

The former DOGE software engineer told colleagues at his new job that he “possessed two highly restricted databases of US citizen information” and planned to use the information at his new company, according to the report, which added that the Social Security Administration’s inspector general is investigating the whistleblower’s complaint.

The former DOGE employee, whom the Washington Post did not name, worked at the Social Security Administration last year. In October, he left to work for a government contractor, where he told colleagues he had obtained two databases, “Numident” and the “Master Death File,” according to The Post, which said the databases could include records on “more than 500 million living and dead Americans, including Social Security numbers, places and dates of birth, citizenship, race and parental ancestry.”

The man also reportedly claimed he previously had unfettered “God-level” access to SSA systems.

A spokesman for the Social Security Administration, which is still controlled by the DOGE, denied that a former employee stole US citizen data. The spokesman said the Washington Post was “desperate for clicks and willing to publish fake news to scare the elderly.” The inspector general’s office, which is independent from the Trump administration, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

This is the latest case of a suspected breach of Americans’ personal data linked to the DOGE and its hacking of the Social Security Administration. In January, two DOGE members were suspected of accessing and sharing off-limits Social Security numbers as part of an effort to help an advocacy group that intended to “overturn election results in certain states,” according to a lawsuit.

Another whistleblower inside the agency said last year that DOGE members were putting Americans at risk by uploading hundreds of millions of Social Security records to a vulnerable cloud server. Also last year, a judge blocked the DOGE from accessing SSA systems, accusing the Musk-led agency of “essentially engaging in a fishing expedition” in search of fraud.

Many members of DOGE moved to the Social Security Administration after Trump took office last year. According to the Washington Post, at least a dozen DOGE employees, most of them technical staff or engineers, worked at the agency, although their actual roles and activities were not shared with the rest of the staff.