Musk again misleads on Social Security fraud

WASHINGTON — Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, has continued his campaign to aggressively undercut Social Security, leveling baseless and often misleading attacks on the insurance program.

During an event in Wisconsin on Sunday for a state judicial race, Musk, who has made inaccurate and unsupported claims about dead people and immigrants lacking permanent legal status receiving benefits and broad allegations of widespread fraud, took aim at phone calls to the Social Security Administration.

It is part of Musk’s broader bid to identify what he deems waste and abuse across the federal government, and the entitlement program has been in his crosshairs in recent weeks.

The cost-cutting initiative Musk leads, the Department of Government Efficiency, did not respond to requests for comment.

What was said

“One interesting statistic was that 40% of the calls into Social Security were fraudulent, meaning that it was someone trying to get a Social Security payment that was going to a senior instead to go to a fraud ring.” — during a campaign event in Wisconsin on Sunday

This is misleading. Musk appears to have misunderstood a statistic from the Social Security Administration. The agency recently estimated that 40% of direct deposit fraud, one specific type of fraud, occurred via calls to the agency. That is not the same thing as 40% of all telephone calls being fraudulent.

The Social Security Administration handles 50 million to 60 million calls to its national 800 number and local field offices annually, either via an agent or through an automatic menu. People can call to request government forms, seek identification replacement or updates or check status of a claim, as well as obtain a host of general information like the address of the nearest Social Security office or the amount of a cost-of-living adjustment.

Last month, though, the Social Security Administration estimated that about 40% of direct deposit fraud for Social Security is associated with someone calling the agency to change bank information.

The agency noted that verifying identification by answering security questions over the telephone was no longer enough to prevent fraud, and that beneficiaries would now need to visit an office in person or use two-factor authentication to change bank information.

Last month, the acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration also estimated that total direct deposit fraud amounted to about $100 million annually, but did not provide a specific number of fraud cases.

For context, more than 99% of Social Security benefits are paid through direct deposit, and the agency paid out some $1.5 trillion in benefits last year. The roughly $40 million in direct deposit fraud via telephone, then, represents less than 0.003% of total benefits.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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