How a mid-level staffer rose to oversee the Social Security Administration within days

Last week, Leland Dudek, a mid-level career employee at the Social Security Administration, posted on LinkedIn that he was placed on administrative leave for cooperating with Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency and asked for help finding another job.

Last week, Leland Dudek, a mid-level career employee at the Social Security Administration, posted on LinkedIn that he was placed on administrative leave for cooperating with Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency and asked for help finding another job. Days later, courtesy of President Donald Trump, he had one: Social Security’s acting commissioner. He replaced Michelle King, an agency staffer with decades of experience who resigned last weekend after tussling with DOGE representatives over access to Social Security’s sensitive records. She is one of several high-ranking career officials across the federal government who have departed over concerns about DOGE staffers’ potential access to federal databases with Americans’ private information, which has also sparked lawsuits. By contrast, Dudek, who joined Social Security in 2009 and worked in its anti-fraud office, acknowledged in the now-deleted LinkedIn post that he had worked with DOGE. “I confess. I helped DOGE understand SSA. I mailed myself publically accessible documents and explained them DOGE,” he wrote in the post, which CNN viewed. “I confess. I moved contractor money around to add data science resources to my anti-fraud team to examine Direct Deposit Fraud.” “I confess. I bullied agency executives, shared executive contact information, and circumvented the chain of command to connect DOGE with the people who get stuff done,” he posted.