Former head of Social Security Michael Astrue says Elon Musk and DOGE are wrong about the agency
Source: NPR
Former head of Social Security says Elon Musk and DOGE are wrong about the agency
March 24, 2025 5:15 AM ET
Heard on Morning Edition
By Michel Martin, Destinee Adams
The Trump administration says big changes are coming to Social Security as it works to weed out alleged fraud.
But Michael Astrue, a former commissioner of the Social Security Administration, warns that the Trump administration's efforts are ill informed. Elon Musk, a close adviser to President Trump and his largest donor, has been combing through the administration's records through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
"If you want to go in and put in efficiencies to bring down the size of the agency, you can do that. But there's a smart way to do it, and there's a stupid way to do it," Astrue said. "And we're doing it the way that 22-year-old frat boys that have never seen the system think is a good idea, and that's a mistake."
Astrue warns that DOGE workers aren't familiar with Social Security's functionalities or Common Business-Oriented Language (COBOL), a 60-year-old code used by the Social Security Administration that some of the DOGE workers may not have worked with before. Astrue says he doesn't condemn Musk and his team for not knowing the code, but he does fault Musk for not admitting to error.
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Read more: https://www.npr.org/2025/03/24/nx-s1-5337999/elon-musk-doge-social-security-cuts