Social Security Leader Warns of Halt to Agency’s Work, Before Backtracking

The acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration made a startling warning Friday that he might have to shut down the system that undergirds the agency, and then backtracked after a judge said he had misinterpreted a court order.

Leland Dudek, the acting commissioner, issued the warning in a series of interviews with news outlets, including Bloomberg News and The New York Times, in response to the judge’s order Thursday that barred Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency team from access to sensitive records.

In the interviews, Mr. Dudek suggested that he was interpreting the ruling to mean that the entire system used for the agency’s work might need to shut down, since he considered many employees, including himself, to be affiliated with DOGE.

“At the very least, it means shutting down my broad unit, the C.I.O. and general counsel,” Mr. Dudek said Friday morning. “I don’t know how I can run an agency doing that. I guess I would have no choice but to terminate everyone’s access.”

Mr. Dudek told The New York Times then that he would comply with court orders and had already terminated the access for DOGE workers, as required, and was waiting for more court guidance.

While Mr. Dudek later confirmed that the agency’s work would continue, the mere possibility of a drastic halt at an agency that sends payments to more than 73 million people each month set off alarm bells among some lawmakers and beneficiary advocates. Forty percent of older Americans rely on Social Security as their primary source of income and would face economic hardship if benefits were not paid out on time, said John Hishta, senior vice president of campaigns at AARP.