Social Security systems contain tens of millions of lines of code written in COBOL, an archaic programming language. Safely rewriting that code would take years—DOGE wants it done in months.
65 million people in the US currently receive Social Security benefits. They're considering Java as a replacement.
The project is being organized by Elon Musk lieutenant Steve Davis, multiple sources who were not given permission to talk to the media tell WIRED, and aims to migrate all SSA systems off COBOL, one of the first common business-oriented programming languages, and onto a more modern replacement like Java within a scheduled tight timeframe of a few months.
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SSA’s core “logic” is also written largely in COBOL. This is the code that issues social security numbers, manages payments, and even calculates the total amount beneficiaries should receive for different services, a former senior SSA technologist who worked in the office of the chief information officer says. Even minor changes could result in cascading failures across programs.
The difference here is that those banks presumably at least wanted their systems to keep working after being migrated off COBOL. For the
crew, making the system completely broken and unusable is a bonus objective.
One of Robert Moses’ key ways to build his empire and power was, get stakes in the ground as soon as possible. Doesn’t matter if the plans are finished or if not all the funding is there, just get it started and then the politicos will be pressured into finishing to save face of having a failed project.
Musk gets this speed run out the door, doesn’t matter if it’s a boondoggle on launch, as long as it’s his team that has the spaghetti code in their pocket, that creates the impetus to “let him finish the job” and then one of his corporate fiefdoms will become the one that manages the SSA system in perpetuity.
I could definitely see this happening, if somehow in four years dema get elected they'll probably be too cowardly to stop any of these plans once they're set in motion out of fear that they'd be wasting a sunk cost.