Elon Musk: Why US social security database makes Elon Musk think vampires are real

DOGE lead Elon Musk stirred up a storm on social media when he shared a screenshot of what seemed to be data from the US Social Security database. The screenshot featured some unusual records that raised eyebrows, and Musk’s witty commentary took the attention of many.
In his X post, Musk pointed to a surprising anomaly in the Social Security database—an official record containing information about individuals in the SSA’s age demographics.
The data shown seems to represent the age brackets of individuals still listed as alive in the SSA’s records and includes highly unlikely age ranges like 100-109 and above. This raises questions about potential data errors, fraud, or humorous speculation about immortality or vampirism.
The data pointed out millions listed as being over 100 years old. This is where Musk humorously suggested that perhaps these individuals are not just elderly citizens but vampires.
“According to the Social Security database, these are the numbers of people in each age bucket with the death field set to FALSE!” Musk wrote. “Maybe Twilight is real and there are a lot of vampires collecting Social Security,” he added, referencing the popular vampire-themed “Twilight” series.
The mention of vampires, like Edward Cullen from the “Twilight” franchise, implied that these individuals, though listed as over 100 years old, might just be immortal beings collecting Social Security benefits. Musk’s post also raised important questions about the integrity of the data within the database.
Commenters on Musk’s post quickly pointed out that this could be a “massive fraud red flag” and called for an urgent audit of the data. The concerns stem from the possibility that these numbers could reflect errors in the database or fraudulent activity that goes unnoticed and needs to be addressed.
“Over 20M ‘people’ listed as 100+ years old in the SS database? Time for a serious audit. Either we’ve got immortals gaming the system or some major data integrity issues,” said one X user, calling for a thorough check and audit of the database.
While the data in question is real and pulled from an official source, its accuracy in representing the actual population is now in doubt. The sight of so many people supposedly over 100, especially when compared to the total US population, is highly unusual and suggests potential data integrity issues.
The discrepancy in the Social Security data might point to a serious need for these techniques, especially if fraud is a factor.