A federal judge on Thursday issued a preliminary injunction extending the ban on Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from accessing the personal records of millions of Americans stored by the Social Security Administration (SSA).
U.S. District Judge Ellen L. Hollander—appointed by President Barack Obama—issued a scathing 148-page ruling siding with far-left unions and advocacy groups over the privacy of government records, despite the Trump administration’s claim that the access was crucial to rooting out fraud, waste, and abuse in the bloated entitlement bureaucracy.
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has launched an unprecedented cleanup operation targeting jaw-dropping irregularities in the U.S. Social Security database.
Over 7 million supposed numberholders aged 120 and older have now been officially marked as deceased.
The official DOGE X account announced:
“For the past 3 weeks, SocialSecurity has been executing a major cleanup of their records. Approximately 7 million numberholders, all listed age 120+, have now been marked as deceased. Another ~5 million to go.”
The Gateway Pundit previously reported that the DOGE team had discovered jaw-dropping inconsistencies within the U.S. Social Security database. According to their findings, over 25 million Americans are registered as aged 100 or older—some allegedly older than the U.S. Constitution itself.
Musk tweeted a staggering claim accompanied by a table of ages, suggesting that the Social Security Administration might be paying out benefits to “vampires.”
“According to the Social Security database, these are the numbers of people in each age bucket with the ‘death’ field set to FALSE. Maybe Twilight is real, and there are a lot of vampires collecting Social Security,” Musk quipped.
The table Musk provided shows:
- Age 0-9: 38,825,456
- Age 10-19: 44,326,480
- Age 20-29: 47,995,478
- Age 30-39: 52,106,915
- Age 40-49: 47,626,581
- Age 50-59: 45,740,805
- Age 60-69: 46,381,281
- Age 70-79: 33,404,412
- Age 80-89: 15,165,127
- Age 90-99: 6,054,154
- Age 100-109: 4,734,407
- Age 110-119: 3,627,007
- Age 120-129: 3,472,849
- Age 130-139: 3,936,311
- Age 140-149: 3,542,044
- Age 150-159: 1,345,083
- Age 160-169: 121,807
- Age 170-179: 6,087
- Age 180-189: 695
- Age 190-199: 448
- Age 200-209: 879
- Age 210-219: 866
- Age 220-229: 1,039
- Age 240-249: 1
- Age 360-369: 1
Created by Executive Order 14,158 on January 20, 2025, immediately after President Trump’s second inauguration, DOGE was launched as a government-wide reform initiative to overhaul wasteful bureaucracy and identify fraud within federal agencies.
Trump’s plan was clear: unleash top tech talent, including engineers and investigators led by Elon Musk, to clean house inside federal agencies.
But according to the lawsuit brought by unions like the AFL-CIO, American Federation of Teachers, and the Alliance for Retired Americans, DOGE’s access to SSA’s data systems somehow constituted a threat to “privacy” and “due process.”
Judge Ellen Hollander previously granted a temporary restraining order against DOGE on March 20, saying DOGE’s workers are on a “fishing expedition.”
“The DOGE Team is essentially engaged in a fishing expedition at SSA, in search of a fraud epidemic, based on little more than suspicion. It has launched a search for the proverbial needle in the haystack, without any concrete knowledge that the needle is actually in the haystack,” Judge Hollander wrote.
Far-left organizations like AFL-CIO, the American Federation of Teachers and other plaintiffs sued the Social Security Administration, Elon Musk, DOGE and other Trump advisors.
“The plaintiffs are the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, AFL-CIO (“AFSCME”); Alliance for Retired Americans (“ARA” or “Alliance”); and American Federation of Teachers (“AFT”). They have sued the Social Security Administration; Leland Dudek, in his official capacity as “purported Acting Commissioner” of the SSA; Michael Russo, in his official capacity as Chief Information Officer (“CIO”) of the Agency; Elon Musk, in his official capacity as “Senior Advisor to the President and de facto head of” the Department of Government Efficiency; the “U.S. DOGE Service”; the U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization; and Amy Gleason, in her official capacity as the DOGE Acting Administrator,” the court document read.
The judge sided with the plaintiffs and said DOGE is likely violating privacy laws with access to social security numbers and other personal information.
On Thursday night, Hollander extended a ban through a preliminary injunction that blocks billionaire Elon Musk’s aides from accessing the private data of millions of Americans stored in the Social Security Administration’s computer systems.
This injunction not only halts DOGE’s access to the data but requires DOGE affiliates to purge and delete any data already obtained from SSA systems.
Hollander wrote in her opinion:
“The objective to address fraud, waste, mismanagement, and bloat is laudable, and one that the American public presumably applauds and supports. Indeed, the taxpayers have every right to expect their government to make sure that their hard earned money is not squandered.
However, the issue here is not the work that DOGE or the Agency want to do. The issue is about how they want to do the work. The DOGE Team seeks access to the [personally identifiable information] that millions of Americans entrusted to SSA, and the SSA Defendants have agreed to provide it.
[…]
In my view, plaintiffs have standing, for the reasons stated. They are also likely to succeed on their claim that the Agency’s actions are arbitrary and capricious, and in violation of the Privacy Act and the APA. And, plaintiffs have demonstrated that their members will suffer irreparable harm in the absence of a preliminary injunction, the equities tip in their favor, and the preliminary injunction serves the public interest.”