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#ElonMusk’s #DOGE has sent 3 individuals w/experience in #PrivateEquity & #finance to the #SocialSecurity Admin, highlighting the focus that #Trump is putting on *rooting out waste & fraud in the nation’s social insurance programs* [dismantling & privatizing the system].
#benefits #government #kleptocracy #TrumpCoup #USpol #law
https://archive.is/2025.03.10-183556/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-03-10/musk-s-doge-team-sends-private-equity-veterans-to-social-security-agency
Among those tapped for the task are Antonio Gracias of Valor Equity Partners, who also served on the board of #Tesla Inc & was an early investor in #SpaceX …as well as Scott Coulter, formerly of Lone Pine Capital, & Michael Russo, formerly of Shift4….
Those names, confirmed in agency & court documents, underscore the importance that the #SocialSecurity agency has taken as a beachhead for #Musk’s #government *cost-cutting* effort.
#Trump elevated a mid-level anti-fraud specialist, Leland Dudek, to be #SocialSecurity’s acting commissioner last month — skipping over more than 150 higher-ranking supervisors at the agency.
Dudek had cooperated with #DOGE, helping to bring Russo & Coulter into the agency, according to a sworn statement filed Friday by #TiffanyFlick, the former agency chief of staff who retired when Dudek was promoted.
Russo arrived Feb 3, & “introduced himself as a #DOGE representative to multiple employees on multiple occasions,” #TiffanyFlick said. He now serves as the agency’s chief information officer. Russo also brought on Akash Bobba, a fmr intern for #PeterThiel’s #Palantir Technologies Inc, to *analyze* #SocialSecurity data.
Bobba’s onboarding was unusual, acc/to #TiffanyFlick, who said his background check was held up for a few days. She said she received pressure from Russo & Steve Davis, who runs #Musk’s Boring Co & is also working for #DOGE, to get Bobba credentials by midnight on Feb 10. Bobba was sworn in over the phone, “contrary to standard practice,” she said.
#TiffanyFlick said she didn’t know what #DOGE was working on, but that it seemed to have something to do with allegations of widespread *fraud* that she considered to be “invalid.”
A spox for the #SocialSecurity Administration did not respond to questions about DOGE’s work at the agency. Russo, Gracias, Coulter, Bobba & Davis also did not respond to messages seeking comment.
#Trump has used #SocialSecurity as a primary example for what he casts as a govt rampant w/*fraud, waste & abuse*, claiming there are millions of people at advanced ages—including some purportedly over 100 years of age—still collecting agency checks.
“I’m not going to touch Social Security, #Medicare, #Medicaid. Now, we’re going to get *fraud* out of there,” Trump said in an interview Sun. “…We have people 250 years old & all, tremendous fraud.” [LIE, this has been repeatedly debunked]
Dudek has repeatedly rebutted that claim. While a database of people who have had #SocialSecurity numbers is missing dates of death for millions of records, that doesn’t mean those people appear in a separate database of beneficiaries, he said.
Under #Trump, the agency is already undergoing a *reorganization*, w/snr staffers exiting, & job cuts & office reductions in the works—alarming Dems who see them as a threat to a #benefits program….
@Nonilex nice work. Thank you.
@Nonilex People of this ilk, including heads of funds, have been brainwashed by the fiction that private sector = skilled and efficient and government = lazy and clueless. Republicans good for economy and Democrats bad. And they have never bothered to actually do their homework to see if that's true Often, in fact it's the reverse. Govvies do a lot with limited resources and yoyo budgets, etc. These DOGE types and fund managers are too incompetent to understand that they are incompetent. #USPol
@Nonilex social security is not important for the ultra-rich. Obvious waste from Trump/Elon's perspective.
Radical anarchists want to do two contradictory things regarding Social Security. Terminate it, a generations long wish. And turn its assets and revenue stream over to Wall Street.
They are so vast, that even a small percentage fee would generate many billions in revenue for the private sector - while lowering Social Security's rate of return. The consequences for retired Americans, and everyone who's paid into Social Security, would be devastating.
Anyone who's seen Bain Capital or Boston Consulting twenty-something MBAs hover around the executive suite like 6-yr-olds playing soccer knows how this works out.
Massive cost cutting and job losses, drastic cuts to pay and benefits, C-suiters make out like bandits, company goes under. Management gaslights everyone until it turns out the lights and locks the doors.
This cannot happen to Social Security.