200-Year-Old Social Security Fraud? Trump and Musk’s Latest Conspiracy vs. Reality

By Justin Jest – Gonzo Journalist, Reluctant Realist, Connoisseur of Chaos

Just when you thought 2025 couldn’t get any weirder, Donald Trump and Elon Musk are now claiming that America’s Social Security system is riddled with vampires.

Okay, not literally. But close.

At a recent rally and on social media, President Trump claimed that Social Security records contain “millions and millions” of people over 100 years old still receiving benefits—some supposedly 200 or even 300 years old, with one mystery beneficiary listed as an astounding 360 years old.

Musk, never one to pass up a chance to throw gasoline on a data-driven conspiracy, jumped in:

“Tens of millions of dead people still on Social Security. Maybe Twilight is real and there are a lot of vampires collecting benefits.”

Yes. The guy who owns Tesla and SpaceX just publicly entertained the possibility that the undead are siphoning Social Security funds.

So, let’s do what Trump and Musk didn’t and actually look at the facts behind this bizarre claim.

Are There 200-Year-Old People in Social Security’s System?

Yes—but not in the way Trump and Musk are implying.

The Social Security Administration (SSA) does have records listing people at impossible ages—200 years old, 300 years old, even more.

But here’s the reality: these are data errors, not secret immortals cashing checks in Boca Raton.

Why Do Fake 200-Year-Olds Exist in Social Security’s Database?

• COBOL’s Revenge: The Social Security system still runs on COBOL, a programming language from the 1950s. That means it doesn’t handle dates very well.
  • Instead of recording a real birthdate, missing or incomplete data is sometimes replaced with a default placeholder date—often May 20, 1875 or another arbitrary year.
  • If someone’s actual birthdate isn’t recorded, the system might display an age of 150+ years.
• Clerical Errors & Legacy Issues: Many of these records are for people who died long ago, but their death wasn’t properly recorded in SSA’s system.
  • The SSA’s Death Master File—which tracks deceased Social Security number holders—contains over 142 million names, but not everyone who has died is listed.
  • In some cases, the system never got an official death report, especially for people who never drew benefits or died before electronic records were fully implemented.
• “360-Year-Old” Case? Probably a Database Glitch: Trump cited a case of one person listed at 360 years old. That’s almost certainly a data entry mistake or a default date gone haywire.

Here’s the most important point:

Just Because a Name is in the Database Doesn’t Mean It’s Getting Money

Having an age listed in Social Security’s system does not mean that person is actively receiving benefits.

A 2015 audit by the SSA’s Inspector General found 6.5 million people over 112 years old listed as “alive” in SSA records.

Sounds alarming, right?

But guess how many were actually receiving Social Security payments?

Almost none.

Similarly, a 2023 report found 18.9 million Social Security number holders born before 1920 (meaning they’d be at least 105+ years old). Almost all of them were inactive records, meaning they weren’t drawing any money—just artifacts from incomplete record-keeping.

And to put a final nail in the coffin of this so-called “fraud”—since 2015, SSA has automatically cut off all payments to anyone over 115 unless specifically verified as alive.

So, Is There Any Fraud?

Yes, but not the way Trump and Musk describe.

• Social Security has occasionally made payments to people who have died, usually because their deaths weren’t reported right away.
• Sometimes, fraudsters use the Social Security numbers of deceased individuals to commit identity theft—opening bank accounts or filing false tax returns.

But this is not a case of millions of zombies collecting retirement checks.

In fact, SSA’s own estimates show that less than 1% of Social Security’s budget is lost to fraud or improper payments—across all categories, including errors made to living people.

Compare that to the $8.6 trillion Social Security has paid out in benefits over the last decade, and you quickly realize that even if every outdated record was fixed tomorrow, it wouldn’t save the system any meaningful amount of money.

Trump’s Social Security “Efficiency” Plan: Scapegoating Data Glitches

None of this stopped Trump from using this claim as a rallying cry for his new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—his initiative to supposedly eliminate waste and fraud from federal programs.

Under Musk’s oversight, DOGE has been tasked with “cleaning up” these records, which sounds great until you realize it’s being used as an excuse to justify mass layoffs at SSA.

• SSA already has a backlog of cases and long wait times. Cutting staff in the name of “efficiency” could make it harder for real people to get benefits they actually need.
• Instead of focusing on real policy solutions for Social Security’s long-term funding challenges, Trump and Musk are fixating on sensationalized data quirks that have almost no financial impact.

Musk’s Role: A PR Stunt Disguised as Reform

Musk’s involvement here is particularly ridiculous.

He took Trump’s claim and turned it into a meme, saying that maybe Twilight was real and there were “vampires collecting Social Security.”

While it was obviously a joke, it distracted from the real issue: that Social Security, like many government agencies, relies on outdated software and slow bureaucratic processes, which cause inefficiencies—but not the kind Trump is claiming.

The Bigger Issue: Social Security’s Real Problems

While Trump and Musk are obsessing over non-existent 300-year-old retirees, Social Security is facing actual financial challenges that need real solutions.

• By 2035, Social Security’s trust fund reserves could be depleted, meaning benefits might be reduced if Congress doesn’t act.
• The biggest threats to Social Security’s solvency aren’t clerical errors or COBOL glitches—they’re demographic shifts. The number of retirees is growing faster than the number of workers paying into the system.
• There are legitimate discussions to be had about raising payroll tax caps, adjusting retirement ages, or tweaking benefits to ensure long-term stability.

But instead of focusing on those solutions, Trump and Musk are pretending Social Security’s biggest problem is a bunch of imaginary Civil War veterans cashing checks.

Final Thoughts: No, 300-Year-Olds Aren’t Draining Social Security

If you take Trump’s claim at face value, you’d think fixing Social Security is as simple as deleting some undead names from a database.

The truth?

• The “millions of 100-year-olds” in Social Security’s system are almost entirely people who have already died but weren’t marked as such in old records.
• SSA already has safeguards in place to prevent improper payments to extreme ages.
• No, 200- or 300-year-olds are not actually receiving Social Security benefits.
• Fixing these database quirks wouldn’t solve Social Security’s real financial issues.

Trump and Musk aren’t fixing Social Security. They’re using outdated records as a talking point to justify gutting the agency and pushing a narrative of government incompetence.

The next time someone tells you that vampires are collecting Social Security checks, ask them one simple question:

If we’re really paying benefits to 200-year-olds, where’s my check?