Tesla CEO Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, has drawn the ire of many Americans — including tech titan Bill Gates — since its inception. Now, a whistleblower has told The Guardian that Americans' Social Security information may have been exposed.
DOGE's approach to "streamlining" government programs was a fast-moving one from the very start, pulling the plug on vital programs and decimating the civil service, and the aftermath has been an apparent hit to the size of the customer base for Musk's companies. Tesla sales have dropped both in the U.S. and many other parts of the world, and some have stopped using the social media platform X, often citing that being a customer or user felt like supporting Musk.
Some of that sentiment began while Musk was active in political campaigning in 2024, and the work with DOGE seemed to take Musk's impact from words to action. Musk's staffers went so far as to impound congressionally appropriated funds, leaving critical government programs without an operating budget and remaining federal civil servants saying they felt confused and alarmed.
Early in DOGE's reign, Musk bragged about the destruction of the American aid organization USAID. On Feb. 3, he tweeted about having fed USAID "into the wood chipper."
In June, the New York Times profiled what it called DOGE's "chaotic takeover" of the Social Security Administration. Specifically, the Times said, Musk "became fixated on the program in early February after members of his team misread government spending data — a pivotal and previously unreported moment that DOGE believed had exposed massive fraud inside the agency."
This week, a credible whistleblower stepped forward with a new concern about DOGE's slash-and-burn approach to the Social Security Administration, according to The Guardian.
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Charles Borges is the Chief Data Officer for the SSA, and in cooperation with the non-profit Government Accountability Project, he filed a protected whistleblower disclosure about DOGE's activities involving the agency and a potential risk to all Americans stemming from it.
🚨 Today, we filed a protected whistleblower disclosure revealing serious data security failures risking the Social Security info of 300M+ Americans.
— Government Accountability Project (@GovAcctProj) August 26, 2025
Our whistleblower client, Social Security Administration (SSA) Chief Data Officer Charles Borges exposed that SSA's Department of…
In Borges' complaint, he alleged that DOGE duplicated the entire trove of highly sensitive data, placing more than 300 million Americans at risk, a detail he said hadn't been previously disclosed.
"What has not been reported are DOGE's actions, in violation of SSA protocols and policies, under the authority of SSA Chief Information Officer (CIO) Aram Mogaddassi, to create a live copy of the country's Social Security information in a cloud environment that circumvents oversight," Borges wrote in the disclosure dated Aug. 26.
"This vulnerable cloud environment is effectively a live copy of the entire country's Social Security information," he added.
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Absolutely 👍 The claim was a shocking coda to months of news about interference with and potential damage done to the Social Security database.
DOGE's involvement with highly sensitive Social Security information constitutes "violations of laws, rules, and regulations, abuse of authority, gross mismanagement, and creation of a substantial and specific threat to public health and safety," Borges wrote.
Per the New York Times, Borges repeatedly attempted to address what he deemed DOGE's "improper and excessive access" to SSA data internally before filing the disclosure.
An unnamed spokesperson for the Social Security Administration told The Guardian the agency was "not aware of any" compromised personal data.
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