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| - In February 2025, a rumor spread online that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an initiative of the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, found that a Louisiana man had been using 34 different names and Social Security numbers to collect more than $1 million a year in Social Security benefits.
Snopes readers wrote in and searched the site for information about the rumor. Examples of the claim also appeared in posts on social media platforms including X (archived) and Facebook (archived).
(Facebook page Montgomery County Republican Party)
Some of those posts included a meme that featured a photo of Elon Musk holding a chainsaw. Musk, the billionaire Trump adviser, has been associated with DOGE since Trump announced the initiative in a 2024 Truth Social post. The text of the meme read, "WOW" and "Doge discovers Louisiana man with 34 different names, addresses, and social security numbers. He was collecting $1,168,646 in SS per year."
In short, there was no demonstrable evidence to support the claim. A Google search (archived) for the terms "Louisiana," "34 names," and "Social Security" returned no reporting from reliable sources about the claim other than fact checks debunking it. There was also no mention of the claim on DOGE's official X account (archived) or website.
As the fact-checking website Lead Stories reported in a Feb. 25 article, posts by two different social media accounts, neither of which was a credible source, appeared to have fueled the claim's spread online.
First, on Feb. 21, a TikTok account with the handle @the.oligarchy posted (archived) the meme that appeared in the Facebook and X posts mentioned above.
That account's history was full of similar memes about DOGE discovering various alleged cases of fraud. Although the account did not have an explicit satire disclaimer, and many TikTok users who commented on the posts appeared to believe the memes' claims were true, many of the descriptions of supposed fraud cases were outlandish and seemingly satirical.
For example, one of the account's posts read, "DOGE finds $48,500 in taxpayer money was used to purchase thousands of feet pics off the web." Another read, "Musk and DOGE discovered that USAID used $83,000 in taxpayer funds to buy Fruity Pebbles for the people of Somalia. Fruity Dyno-Bites are the same thing and MUCH cheaper."
Three days later, on Feb. 24, an X account with the handle @DOGEtracker69 shared the same claim in a post that read: "BREAKING: #DOGE discovers a Louisiana man with 34 different names, addresses, and social security numbers. He was collecting $1,168,646 in SS per year!"
(X user @DOGEtracker69)
The post also included a gif that read "BREAKING" in white text over a red background. A logo visible in the background of the gif was that of the Turkish state-run news agency Anadalou Agency, which at the time of this writing had no articles (archived) related to the claim on its website.
Some X users appeared to believe the @DOGEtracker69 account was officially associated with DOGE, likely because the account had a verified badge and its info section included a link to the official DOGE website.
Some of the account's posts about DOGE activities also had elements of truth, such as one about the claim that DOGE found $2 billion earmarked for a nonprofit linked to former Democratic Georgia state Rep. Stacey Abrams.
However, there was no evidence the owner of the account had any official links to DOGE.
DOGE has its own official X account with the handle @DOGE and a grey verified badge, meaning X confirmed that it was an authentic "government or multilateral organization account," according to a message that pops up when users click on the badge. The @DOGEtracker69 account, by contrast, had the blue verified badge available to any paid X user who meets certain criteria.
Another hint the @DOGEtracker69 X account was not a credible outlet was the inclusion of the number 69 in its handle. As the website Know Your Meme notes, internet users have referred to the number 69 — which is shorthand for a sex position — in crude internet jokes and memes since at least the early 2000s.
Previously, we looked into Musk's claim that "150-year-olds" were collecting Social Security payments.
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