Did DOGE discover a Louisiana man with 34 Social Security numbers? No, that’s unfounded

On its X account and website, the Department of Government Efficiency headed by Elon Musk posts "receipts" of its work, in many cases highlighting millions of dollars going to items it deems wasteful.

Musk previously posted a chart and claimed millions of likely dead centenarians were receiving Social Security benefits. That claim was unproven.

Now, Facebook users are claiming DOGE recently made another finding: a man collecting more than $1 million using 34 Social Security numbers.

"DOGE discovers Louisiana man with 34 different names, addresses, and social security numbers. He was collecting $1,168,646 in (Social Security) per year," read the text in an image shared on multiple Facebook posts. 

These posts were flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads.)

Such an egregious-sounding case of fraud sounds like a slam dunk for DOGE, but the department did not announce such a finding. A search of the post’s keywords — such as "Louisiana," "34" and "Social Security" — on DOGE’s X account and website shows no post about a Louisiana man with 34 Social Security numbers collecting more than $1 million a year.

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"The allegations are unsubstantiated," Rebecca Rose, a spokesperson for the Social Security Administration Office of the Inspector General, told PolitiFact. That office is tasked to prevent and detect fraud, waste and abuse.

We did the same search on Musk’s X account but found no posts supporting that claim. PolitiFact also found no news reports about such a case.

A TikTok account called @the.oligarchy1, which isn’t affiliated with DOGE, posted the claim Feb. 22. The X account @DOGEtracker69 amplified the claim Feb. 24.

Fact-checkers at Lead Stories, Check Your Fact and Reuters also debunked this claim. 

We rate the claim that DOGE discovered a Louisiana man with 34 different Social Security numbers False.

UPDATE, March 6, 2025: This story was updated to include a response from the Social Security Administration Office of the Inspector General.