The U.S. Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has officially removed 12.3 million individuals listed as 120 years old or older from the Social Security rolls.
The mass cleanup, hailed as a victory for transparency and accountability, marks a major milestone in eliminating fraudulent or outdated data from one of the nation’s largest federal programs.
The effort began earlier this year after DOGE, led by Elon Musk, exposed staggering irregularities in the Social Security database, some showing individuals well past the age of 120 as still “alive” on paper.
In February, Musk publicly ridiculed the data, joking, “Maybe Twilight is real and there are a lot of vampires collecting Social Security.”
Following that revelation, DOGE launched a full-scale audit. By mid-March, Social Security had marked 3.2 million such individuals as deceased. That number ballooned to 11 million by late April, and by last week, the final tally of deceased individuals aged 120 and over reached 12.3 million.
According to official figures, the removed records included over 3.3 million people aged 120–129, nearly 3.9 million aged 130–139, and even 124,000 listed as being between 160 and 169 years old.
DOGE also highlighted the fiscal impact of the cleanup, reporting a total savings of $170 billion across all operations to date. These savings follow earlier concerns raised by Musk in March about the distribution of Social Security numbers to 2.1 million non-citizens in 2024, allegedly tied to prior policies that allowed migrants to enter and register for benefits.
Critics of the previous administration’s lax handling of federal records see the purge as long overdue. Supporters of President Trump are hailing the move as another example of his administration’s efforts to root out waste and restore basic common sense to government.