The Social Security Administration, which sends retirement, survivor and disability payments to 73 million people each month, has long been called the “third rail” of politics — largely untouchable given its widespread popularity and role as one of the country’s remaining safety nets.

But in recent weeks, the Trump administration, led by Elon Musk’s crew of cost- cutters at the Department of Government Efficiency, has taken its chainsaw to the agency’s operations. The agency has announced plans to cut up to 12% of its workforce, at a time that its staffing is at a 50-year low. It has also offered early retirement and other incentives, including payments up to $25,000, to the entire staff.

Many current and former Social Security officials fear that the cuts could create gaping holes in the agency’s infrastructure, destabilizing the program, which keeps millions of people out of poverty and large percentages of retirees rely on for the bulk of their income.

The actions have caused Social Security employees and former commissioners and executives of both parties to sound alarms, saying it would be hard to fix the damage, which could threaten access to benefits.

“Everything they have done so far is breaking the agency’s ability to serve the public,” said Martin O’Malley, the most recent former Social Security commissioner under President Joe Biden.

He said he feared that Musk’s team had taken most of the actions necessary to create a total system collapse, whether in skyrocketing wait times for customer service, system interruptions or a timely payment of benefits.

In a statement to The New York Times, the Social Security Administration said it is “identifying efficiencies and reducing costs, with a renewed focus on mission critical work,” including streamlining redundant layers of management, and is “committed to ensuring Americans get the help they need.”

Social Security benefits cannot be changed without legislation passed by Congress. But the delivery of those paychecks — and enabling new people to enroll or make changes — rests upon a complex set of systems that are powered using programming languages developed in the 1970s.

The people who can most deftly operate the agency’s old systems are nearing or already eligible for retirement. At least 30% of the technical staff in the office of the chief information officer fits in those categories, former executives said.

“We are looking at a degradation of the system as a whole because we have a whole line of expertise walking out the door,” said Shelley Washington, executive vice president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 1923, a unit of the federal workers union. “They are firing first and aiming later.”

Washington said the delivery of checks for people already enrolled in the system shouldn’t be affected, for now — but it’s becoming increasingly uncertain who will be around to quickly fix issues when they arise.

Michael Astrue, a former agency commissioner appointed by President George W. Bush, said it appears that Musk has imported the strategy he used when he bought Twitter, “where you go into some place established, level it and then figure you’re going to improvise your way out,” he said, speaking at a briefing Thursday conducted by the National Academy of Social Insurance. “It’s extremely destructive.”

Jason Fichtner, who held several positions at the agency, including deputy commissioner and chief economist, put it even more bluntly at the briefing.

“It’s more like a drunk operating a wrecking ball,” he said.

The White House issued a statement last week, reiterating that President Donald Trump would not cut Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid benefits.

Few dispute that the aging technology needs a reboot. The system hasn’t undergone a major overhaul because Congress hasn’t allocated money for it. It’s also an enormous undertaking, and a lack of continuity in leadership makes it difficult to carry out, current and former technology staff and executives said.

It would take five to seven years and cost more than $2 billion, according to one former technology executive who didn’t want to be identified because the analysis had not been completed.

Although experts familiar with the agency’s operations acknowledged that there is room to improve efficiency, they said it is already run leanly. The agency functions on a budget of less than 1% of its annual benefit payments, which provide retirement, survivor and disability payments.

“This is extremely low,” O’Malley said, noting that it’s far lower than the administrative costs of private insurers.

That hasn’t stopped Musk’s team. Even without a permanent commissioner, the agency is making big decisions: It has already said it would eliminate 7,000 of its 57,000-person workforce and will close six of its 10 regional offices, which coordinate and provide support to employees.

Of its 1,200 field offices that directly serve the public, more than 40 are to be closed, according to Social Security Works, an advocacy group. The group is trying to track the changes but said that its data is based on an unreliable list released by DOGE.

The Social Security headquarters itself was also on a closings list, then later dropped.

Two dozen senior staffers have announced their departures, including the agency’s top three cybersecurity executives, according to a memo issued Feb. 28 from Leland Dudek, the Social Security Administration’s acting commissioner. He took the reins when Michelle King, the previous acting commissioner, left abruptly after refusing to give DOGE representatives access to private data.