Michelle King’s exit is the latest in the series of rows erupting over Musk’s DOGE seeking access to sensitive data from various federal departments. After more than 30 years of service, King chose to resign after refusing to provide the requested information to the DOGE staffers at the SSA.

Reportedly, the White House has replaced King as acting commissioner with Leland Dudek, who also currently works at the Social Security Administration.

In a statement released late on Monday, White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said, “President Trump has nominated the highly qualified and talented Frank Bisignano to lead the Social Security Administration, and we expect him to be swiftly confirmed in the coming weeks. In the meantime, the agency will be led by a career Social Security anti-fraud expert as the acting commissioner.”

Fields further said that Trump is “committed to appointing the best and most qualified individuals who are dedicated to working on behalf of the American people, not to appease the bureaucracy that has failed them for far too long”.

Additionally, Musk’s efficiency team has also reportedly sought access to the sensitive taxpayer data available with the Internal Revenue Service databases. If granted approval, Musk and his team would be able to access millions of tightly controlled files that contain taxpayer information, bank records and other sensitive records of American citizens.

As per an AP report, DOGE was specifically seeking access to the IRS’ Integrated Data Retrieval System, which lets employees “to have instantaneous visual access to certain taxpayer accounts”, the IRS website states.

‘How serious a breach this is’

Ever since Donald Trump has taken charge of the Oval Office, his close ally and billionaire adviser Elon Musk has rapidly dug deep through federal agencies while also avoiding public scrutiny of his work through DOGE.

Meanwhile, Nancy Altman, president of the Social Security Works, an advocacy group for the preservation of Social Security benefits, said that there is no way to overstate “how serious a breach this (DOGE seeks SSA data) is”.

“And my understanding is that it has already occurred. The information collected and held securely by the Social Security Administration is highly sensitive,” she said.

Altman further added that the SSA holds data on everyone with a Social Security number, which is the whole of Americans. Everyone with Medicare, every low-income American who has applied for Social Security’s means-tested companion program, Supplemental Security Income, all of their data is with the SSA.

“If there is an evil intent to punish perceived enemies, someone could erase your earnings record, making it impossible to collect the Social Security and Medicare benefits that you have earned,” Altman said while sounding her concerns.

In addition, Social Security payments account for around $1.5 trillion, or a fifth, of the annual federal spending in the US. An audit from last year, cited by The New York Times, found that from 2015 to 2022, the SSA paid $8.6 trillion in benefits and made approximately $71.8 billion or less than 1 per cent, in improper payments that usually involved recipients getting too much money.

In January 2025, Michelle King was made the acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration, which houses about 58,000 employees. She had first joined the agency as a bilingual claims representative back in 1994 and rose through the ranks within the agency, including holding the office of the chief financial officer and the deputy commissioner for operations, the NYT report said.

Social Security’s future has become one of the top most discussed political issues in the US, with the agency having been a major point of contention during the presidential election in November 2024. At present, around 72.5 million people, including retired, disabled persons, and children, receive the benefits valid under Social Security.

(with AP inputs)