Elon Musk has repeatedly claimed that his so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) project had uncovered massive government fraud when it alleged that 150-year-olds were claiming Social Security benefits.
But Musk has provided no evidence to back up his claims, and experts quickly pointed out that this is very likely just a quirk of the decades-old coding language that underpins the government payment systems.
Musk first made the claims during his Oval Office press conference last week, when he claimed that a “cursory examination of Social Security, and we got people in there that are 150 years old. Now, do you know anyone that’s 150? I don’t know. They should be in the Guinness Book of World Records … So that’s a case where I think they’re probably dead.”
While no evidence was produced to back up this claim, it was picked up by the right-wing commentators online, primarily on Musk’s own X platform, as well as being reported credibly by pro-Trump media outlets.
Computer programmers quickly claimed that the 150 figure was not evidence of fraud, but rather the result of a weird quirk of the Social Security Administration’s benefits system, which was largely written in COBOL, a 60-year-old programming language that undergirds SSA’s databases as well as systems from many other US government agencies.
COBOL is rarely used today, and as such, Musk’s cadre of young engineers may well be unfamiliar with it.
Because COBOL does not have a date type, some implementations rely instead on a system whereby all dates are coded to a reference point. The most commonly used is May 20, 1875, as this was the date of an international standards-setting conference held in Paris, known as the “Convention du Mètre.”
These systems default to the reference point when a birth date is missing or incomplete, meaning all of those entries in 2025 would show an age of 150.
That’s just one possible explanation for what DOGE allegedly found. Musk could also have simply looked up the SSA’s own website, which explains that since September 2015 the agency has automatically stopped benefit payments when anyone reaches the age of 115.
However, on Monday morning Musk doubled down, posting a screenshot of what he claims were figures from “the Social Security database” to X, writing that “the numbers of people in each age bucket with the death field set to FALSE!”
“I’ve been to several rallies in DC where I’m among hundreds of people ready to tear apart Elon’s smug soldiers. But they end with Dems telling us not to lose the faith and, of course, to give them money. And then we go home. What’s needed is not compliant shows of strength but active disruption. If Representative Maxwell Frost is being stopped by security from entering the Department of Education—an absolute outrage—he shouldn’t just tweet about it (and raise money off of it) He should show up with hundreds of people. We are here: masses of us who would not be so easily moved. And if Frost wants to lead us inside, then more power to him. But if that’s not his plan, he needs to get out of the way. Democratic Party leaders are not built for this moment. New DNC chief Ken Martin is no Marek Edelman. But for the Democrats that get the stakes and the ones who want to fight, they need to realize that their audience is vast and the time for niceties, like abiding genocide-enthusiast John Fetterman’s efforts to become the new Manchin instead of openly planning to primary him, is over. The salty old man in my life is ready to throw himself on the gears of this system. And he’s not alone.”
See also: the journalists who sit by and watch their cohorts be removed from press conferences for actually asking the hard questions. Every journalist in those rooms needs to refuse to budge until the questions are answered. And if one gets removed by security, the next one needs to be asking the same question. Until the questions are answered or the room is emptied by force.
“The impacted workers include personnel hired for FAA radar, landing and navigational aid maintenance, one air traffic controller told The Associated Press. The air traffic controller was not authorized to talk to the media and spoke on condition of anonymity. A Transportation Department official told the AP late Monday that no air traffic controllers were affected by the cuts, and that the agency has “retained employees who perform critical safety functions.” In a follow-up query the agency said they would have to look into whether the radar, landing and navigational aid workers affected were considered to handle critical safety functions.”
In a follow-up query the agency said they would have to look into whether the radar, landing and navigational aid workers affected were
considered to handle critical safety functions.
every time I find a pill on the ground I take it home with me and draw a picture of it with crayons. here’s the collection so far.
^ the very first pill I found & drew. couldn’t identify it (markings rubbed off) but it looked very beautiful to me.
^pill no. 2: fluoxetine. my greatest find and finest crayon drawing. sorry to whoever lost their fluoxetine. I’ll save it for a special occasion. I used a sharpie pen to clean up some lines on this one I think.
^ pill no. 3: ibuprofen. accidentally closed my laptop on this one, destroying it. and getting goop on my laptop. I found another one though. People drop a lot of painkillers. The first 2 used only colors from the classic 24 pack of crayons, but I had to break out extras from my childhood crayon collection for this one.
^pill no. 4: benadryl. this pill was crumbling inside its plastic when I found it, but it was intact enough to take home and draw! Hooray.
^pill no. 5: midol. this one was real scuffed up. I actually found an entire bottle of midol on another occasion, and someone’s last 2 weeks of birth control yet another time, but those are the kind of things I leave behind because someone’s likely to miss their entire bottle of midol or sealed birth control and come back for it.
^pill no. 6: unfinished advil/ibuprofen. I find a lot of painkillers, as mentioned, so I guess I got bored. I also have a drawing of acetaminophen that I am not posting because I don’t like it.
^pill no. 7: severe tylenol. I didn’t know such a thing existed until I found it on the ground. “severe tylenol” makes it sound like the tylenol is mean. this was among the more challenging ones and it’s kinda rushed, but drawing the plastic was fun. just did this one an hour ago.
in case you’re wondering, I do keep the pills when possible. I like to hold onto my reference material. they live in a separate box from my vintage ibuprofen collection.
amhrancas 