Trump Asks Supreme Court To Let Doge Access Sensitive Social Security Data

The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Friday to allow Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to access Social Security systems containing sensitive personal information about millions of Americans.

Solicitor General John Sauer argued in an emergency appeal that DOGE has a legitimate need to access the data in order to advise the White House and federal agencies on updating technology and eliminating waste and fraud.

Musk has spread false or misleading claims about purportedly rampant fraud in the Social Security Administration. He has contended, with little evidence, that Social Security checks are being sent to large numbers of dead people or unauthorized immigrants.

Sauer asked the Supreme Court to lift a lower-court order that blocked DOGE from accessing the sensitive data. It’s the latest in a string of emergency requests — and the second in just two days — in which President Donald Trump’s Justice Department is seeking quick intervention from the justices after lower courts blocked aspects of his agenda.

Sauer argued that a district judge’s injunction against DOGE’s access to the SSA is an inappropriate intrusion on the president’s powers to manage the federal workforce.

“The injunction involving the SSA does not merely halt the Executive Branch’s critically important efforts to improve its information-technology infrastructure and eliminate waste,” Sauer wrote. “District court control of decisions about internal access to information also constitutes inappropriate superintendence of a coequal branch.”

The data at issue in the case includes Social Security numbers, medical and mental health records, school records, immigration and naturalization records, bank account data and more.

More than two dozen lawsuits have been filed against DOGE since the cost-cutting initiative, spearheaded by Musk, began its work. Several of those lawsuits allege violations of privacy laws stemming from DOGE employees’ access to data about government workers and the general public. Opponents of DOGE have also argued that the unfettered access provided to DOGE employees violates federal laws requiring all agency actions to be backed by a reasonable justification.

U.S. District Judge Ellen Hollander in Maryland blocked DOGE’s access to SSA systems in March, although she permitted them to view data that didn’t include personally identifying information. A different federal district judge also blocked DOGE’s access to records at the Departments of Treasury and Education and the Office of Personnel Management, but the administration won an appeal earlier this month that restored its access at those agencies.