Ex-Social Security Chief Reveals When Musk will Stop Checks

In a blistering warning that should concern every working American, former Social Security Administration (SSA) chief Martin O’Malley says the program that’s kept millions of retirees afloat for nearly 90 years is being dismantled—deliberately.

And at the heart of it all, he says, are two names: Elon Musk and Donald Trump.

“The Trump-Musk regime is gutting this agency from the inside out,” O’Malley told House Democrats Tuesday. “It’s sabotage. And if we don’t stop it now, benefit checks will stop going out—for the first time since 1935.”

O’Malley, who left his post just four months ago, didn’t mince words during his closed-door testimony to the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee. He laid out what he calls a systematic campaign of misinformation, mismanagement, and manipulation—one that could collapse the Social Security safety net generations of Americans have paid into.

Since the first Social Security check was issued on August 14, 1935, the agency has never failed to send benefits on time—not through wars, recessions, or pandemics.

But according to O’Malley, the Trump-Musk partnership is pushing the system to the breaking point.

“This agency ran on trust,” he said. “Now, that trust is being shredded by billionaires with microphones and politicians with agendas.”

Musk, who was appointed to a vague oversight role under the restructured Trump administration, has reportedly pushed for sweeping internal access to SSA databases, budget cuts, and office closures. According to O’Malley, he also used wildly misleading statistics at campaign-style rallies to rile up anti-immigrant and anti-government sentiment.

At a March 30 rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin, Musk stood before a giant American flag and unveiled oversized charts claiming immigrants were overwhelming the system.

What he failed to mention: immigrants without legal status can’t collect Social Security—but they still pay into it. In fact, O’Malley says undocumented workers contribute more than $22 billion a year to the SSA, helping to fund benefits for others.

“That’s the lie,” O’Malley said. “They say immigrants are stealing your benefits. The truth? They’re subsidizing them.”

Musk also claimed that 40% of SSA phone calls are from fraudsters. That’s false. According to internal SSA data, just 1 out of every 3,100 calls results in successful fraud—a microscopic 0.0003%.

“The total fraud last year? $133 million. That’s less than one-hundredth of one percent of what we paid out,” O’Malley added. “Meanwhile, credit card companies eat 10 times that in fraud and call it a cost of doing business.”

When O’Malley took over SSA in 2023, he inherited an agency in crisis: surging retiree numbers, skeletal staffing, and a Republican-led Congress that had squeezed its budget for over a decade.

Still, he launched SecurityStat, a data-driven initiative modeled after NYPD’s CompStat, to drive performance and accountability across SSA’s nine divisions. Results were immediate: a payment accuracy rate above 99% and overhead costs of just 1.2%—far better than private insurers.

“It was the most transparent and effective the agency had ever been,” he said. “And now they’re smashing it with a sledgehammer.”

Since Musk’s appointment, O’Malley says morale has collapsed. Office closures are looming. Retirements are being pushed through en masse. Workers are being offered buyouts while backlogs grow.

“They want to drown it in red tape,” he warned. “Then they’ll point at the wreckage and say, ‘See? Government doesn’t work.’”

O’Malley believes the endgame is clear: loot the trust fund.

The Social Security surplus, painstakingly built up to cover Baby Boomer retirements, stands at $2.7 trillion.

“That’s what they want,” he said. “That surplus is more than Elon Musk’s entire net worth. And if they can convince the public Social Security is broken, they’ll grab it under the guise of ‘reform.’”

O’Malley added that the system remains fundamentally sound. In 2024, American workers paid in $1.3 trillion, and $1.4 trillion was paid out—a planned drawdown from the surplus.

“It’s a pay-as-you-go system with a backstop,” he said. “There’s no crisis—except the one they’re creating on purpose.”

O’Malley closed his remarks with a clear call to action:

“They are already 90% of the way to gutting this agency. If we don’t rise up now—if people don’t speak out and demand better—we will lose one of the last things in this country that actually works for regular people.”

The stakes are high, the timeline short.

And for millions of retirees, veterans, and disabled Americans, the consequences could be devastating.

Bottom Line: The former head of Social Security says a billionaire-led misinformation campaign is setting the stage for the biggest benefits disruption in U.S. history—on Trump’s watch. Unless voters act now, the checks may stop coming.