New Social Security chief was being investigated when Musk team tapped him
Leland Dudek, a data analyst working in a small anti-fraud office, was suspected of sharing unauthorized access to information with representatives of Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service. Now he’s the acting Social Security commissioner.
“Leaders of the Social Security Administration had just opened an investigation into a career employee they believed was improperly sharing information with Elon Musk’s cost-cutting team when President Donald Trump elevated the employee this week to acting commissioner, according to three current or former government officials with knowledge of the events.
The agency’s leadership team became aware in recent weeks that
Leland Dudek, a data analyst working in a small anti-fraud office who had been unknown to many of them, was sharing unauthorized access to information with representatives of Musk’s
U.S. DOGE Service, according to the three, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe an internal matter.
It’s not clear what data Dudek shared, but his actions raised enough alarm that he may have violated privacy and tax laws that senior officials placed him on paid leave as they launched their investigation.
The officials, including attorneys in the general counsel’s office, also were notified late last week that Dudek had sent harassing emails to employees in the agency’s personnel and security divisions to rush them to let several engineers hired by DOGE start work and gain access to agency computer systems. The officials pushed back, saying that they had not completed background investigations into the new hires.
… The White House skipped over scores of career senior executives in the agency’s line of succession in appointing Dudek, an IT expert with a zeal for eliminating fraud who was a high-ranking employee on the federal salary scale but not a manager.
… “They want to fire me for cooperating with DOGE,” Dudek wrote in a now-deleted LinkedIn post that was captured by several Social Security employees and is making the rounds of the staff.
“I confess,” he wrote. “I helped DOGE understand SSA. I mailed myself publicly accessible documents and explained them to DOGE. I confess. I moved contractor money around to add data science resources to my anti-fraud team. I confess. I asked where the fat was and is in our contracts so we can make the right tough choices.” …”