The Social Security Administration (SSA) has named Scott Coulter as its new chief information officer (CIO), making him the third person to hold the position since President Donald Trump took office on Jan. 20.
Coulter takes over the SSA’s top tech role from Michael Russo, who took over as CIO on Feb. 3.
Russo, who is now a senior advisor at the agency, replaced Brian Peltier, who was named acting CIO at the agency in late January. According to SSA’s website, Peltier is now serving as the deputy CIO for strategy.
Coulter was previously working with the White House’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) at both SSA and NASA. He previously founded an investment firm known as Cowbird Capital, where he served as CEO and CIO.
The announcement of Coulter as the new CIO comes a week after a Federal court order prevented former CIO Russo from granting DOGE access to “any SSA system of record containing personally identifiable information.” With a new CIO in place, it’s an open question as to whether SSA may be able to evade the court’s order as currently written.
According to a court declaration from Tiffany Flick, former SSA acting chief of staff, Russo “was actually reporting to DOGE” instead of former acting chief of SSA Michelle King – as the CIO normally would.
Under pressure from Russo, Flick said she and other SSA leadership were asked to quickly onboard a DOGE software engineer, Akash Bobba, and give him full access to SSA data.
However, Flick said that Russo “never provided the kind of detail that SSA typically requires to justify this level of access.”
Ultimately, U.S. District Judge Ellen Hollander blocked DOGE’s access to several SSA data systems containing sensitive information.
“At best, there was only a vague and conclusory assertion that access to the entirety of SSA’s systems of records was needed to root out fraud,” Hollander wrote in her memorandum opinion.
“SSA’s decision to provide such access upended the longstanding policy and practice that had governed SSA with respect to access to [personally identifiable information],” she continued.