Leland Dudek, the acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration, outlined his vision for the agency in a lengthy memo to staff members Tuesday, detailing exploratory efforts to implement artificial intelligence and boost anti-fraud efforts as President Donald Trump and his right-hand adviser, Elon Musk, have zeroed in on claims of widespread improper payments at the bureau.
Before he ascended to the position, Dudek previously worked at the agency’s anti-fraud office. The bureau opened an investigation into him after he was suspected of improperly sharing information with Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service; the Trump administration then placed him in charge of the agency.
In the memo Tuesday, which was shared with NBC News by a person who obtained it, Dudek apologized for having made mistakes, said he will continue to make more and pledged to learn from them.
“Over the past month, this agency has seen an unprecedented level of media coverage, some of it true and deserved, while some has not been factual and painted the agency in a very negative light,” he wrote. “I know this has been stressful for you and has caused disruption in your life. Personally, I have made some mistakes, which makes me human like you. I promise you this, I will continue to make mistakes, but I will learn from them. My decisions will always be with the best intentions for this agency, the people we serve, and you.”
Dudek's remarks about making mistakes echo those of Musk, who has said that DOGE "will make mistakes" but that they will be fixed "very quickly."
Dudek praised employees as “outstanding,” saying the agency “hasn’t missed a beat” amid the heightened attention. He then laid out where he believes the agency has “made meaningful progress” in recent weeks.
He highlighted three specific points: working to “prevent improper payments,” improving telephone services and processing submissions from employees who chose the voluntary separation program the Trump administration promoted.
Dudek said 2,700 Social Security employees signed up for that program; 2,000 were deemed eligible, while more than 1,400 have signed their voluntary separation agreements.
On the other items, Dudek pointed to “expanded data-sharing agreements” with outside agencies as “a key step toward reducing fraud and waste.” On telephone services, Dudek said the agency is “exploring ways to implement AI — in a safe, governed manner in accordance with” guidance from the Office of Management and Budget “to streamline and improve call resolution.”
He then outlined what he sees as the action plan for the agency over the next three months. Those efforts include a further zeroing-in on “fraud and waste,” as well as “optimizing and empowering” its workforce. On the latter, Dudek said the agency is “now in a good position to avoid reliance on involuntary reductions in our workforce for this fiscal year.”
Late last month, SSA said it plans to reduce its 57,000-strong workforce by 7,000 people.
Dudek said the Trump administration's "focus on detecting and eliminating fraud, waste and abuse is in line with our mission to pay the right person the right amount at the right time."
In addition, he said he “directed our leadership team to present real-time data online so that the public can see how we are doing.”
“I am increasing our anti-fraud efforts and leading with establishing state-of-the-art methods for identity proofing, which enables the public to securely interact with us online or over the phone,” he continued.
The Social Security Administration did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Dudek’s tenure has been marked by wide-ranging proposals and big shifts that have quickly been walked back. The agency scrapped plans this month to end phone services for filing disability and retirement claims, The Washington Post reported. Instead, it will move forward with a narrower plan that will no longer allow people to change their bank information with the agency over the phone.
Also this month, Dudek rescinded and apologized for an order that would have no longer allowed parents in Maine to sign up for their newborns’ Social Security numbers at hospitals, instead having them register at federal offices.
Michelle King, who previously was the top official at the SSA, stepped down last month after she refused a request from the U.S. DOGE Service to access sensitive government records at the agency, NBC News has reported.
The same month, Musk posted glowingly about Dudek on X.
"There ARE good people in the government who want to eliminate fraud & waste," Musk wrote. "Amazingly, Leland was fired by Social Security Administration upper management for helping @DOGE find taxpayer savings. Can you believe that?? Thanks to President Trump, Leland was brought back right away and now HE is upper management 😎 Promote good players, exit bad players. That’s the right thing to do."
Both Musk and Trump have heightened their focus on what they allege are improper payments flowing out of the agency. Democrats and critics have said that focus is merely a cover to cut people's earned benefits.
Notably, Musk has pledged that DOGE will be able to cut $1 trillion to $2 trillion in federal spending — a number that would be virtually impossible to hit without touching entitlement spending. In an interview in December, Trump said “we’re not touching” Social Security when he was asked about proposed spending cuts.
In a spate of more recent interviews, Musk has referred to Social Security as "a Ponzi scheme," suggested that it is paying out benefits to millions of dead people over 100 years old and that it is a vehicle for Democrats to make payments to undocumented immigrants. On Tuesday, the DOGE account on X posted that the Social Security Administration "has begun a major cleanup of their records."
"Approximately 3.2 million numberholders, all listed age 120+, have now been marked as deceased," it wrote. "More work still to be done."
During his joint speech to Congress, Trump joined in, claiming the administration was finding "shocking levels of incompetence and probable fraud in the Social Security program for our seniors."
Social Security is not fraudulently paying out benefits to millions of Americans age well beyond 100, as NBC News has reported. Rather than fraud, the information Trump and Musk have pointed to as the basis of their claims amounted to a misreading of a known problem with the government's data. Though there are millions of people over age 100 in the SSA database, the vast majority aren’t receiving benefits. The agency’s online records showed that fewer than 90,000 people over age 99 received retirement benefits in December.
A 2023 report from the SSA’s inspector general found that from 2015 to 2022, 0.84% of benefits payments were improper, totaling $71.8 billion over eight years. Most of those payments, the report said, were overpayments, not payments to deceased people or people who did not qualify for them. (In an interview on the podcast of Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, on Monday, Musk surmised that there was $100 billion to $200 billion in entitlements fraud across federal benefit systems.)
