The United States government’s Office of Personnel Management (OPM) uses Iron Mountain [not a government-owned operation] to process and store paperwork when federal workers retire. Everything is written out in longhand and stored in cardboard boxes. Musk thinks we can do better.
It seems inefficient.
By now, you’ve heard about the old mine where the United States government’s Office of Personnel Management (OPM) processes and stores paperwork when federal workers retire. CBS says the mountain is ideal for storage because of its cool temperature and low humidity. It’s also secure.
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Elon Musk Wasn’t Impressed.
“We’re told that the most number of people that could retire possibly in a month is 10,000,” Musk said while speaking from the White House’s Oval Office earlier this week. We’re like, well, why? Why is that? Well, because all the retirement paperwork is manual on paper. It’s manually calculated, then written down on a piece of paper, then it goes down a mine… there’s a limestone mine where we store all the retirement paperwork,” he said, referring to Iron Mountain.
Musk went on to say, “The speed at which the mine shaft elevator can move determines how many people can retire from the federal government. “And the elevator breaks down, and then… nobody can retire. Doesn’t that sound crazy?
“There’s like 1,000 people that work on this,” Musk said. “So I think if we can take those people and say… instead of working in a mine shaft and carrying manila envelopes to boxes in a mine shaft, you could do practically anything else, and you would add to the goods and services of the United States in a more useful way.”
WILD. Elon says the most number of people that can retire in a month is 10,000 because the government uses a limestone mine to hold all retirement paperwork which is done manually and stored via a shaft‼️ pic.twitter.com/MgMK9DlZyq
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) February 11, 2025
The Anonymous People
CBS ‘News’ interviewed anonymous people who said the facility doesn’t have an elevator. However, other employees have used it. It’s not in the tower and doesn’t appear on maps. It’s in Earthen Peak, not the tower.
They also said the retirements have to be handled in this archaic way.
“No two retirements are the same,” one employee said. “It changes depending on the agency they worked for, their position, and numerous other factors.”
According to Mediaite, Iron Mountain, a 330,000-square-foot data center located more than 200 feet underground, operates similarly to Musk’s description. The facility houses a team of over 700 workers who manually process around 10,000 federal retirement applications each month. These applications are stored in manila envelopes and cardboard boxes, and the work is conducted in eight massive file caverns.
The Problem Is the Speed at Which the Paperwork Is Processed
The Express Tribune quoted Musk saying the process is limited by how quickly an elevator can transport workers through the mine shaft, which can take months to complete
Despite the advantages of the mine’s location and climate, the real issue lies with the outdated methods used for processing paperwork. Previous attempts to digitize the process have failed, resulting in millions of dollars spent without success.
A 2021 report highlighted how the government had invested over $106 million in efforts to modernize the system, but these attempts proved ineffective. As a result, the retirement process remains largely manual, with employees still relying on physical signatures and paper printouts.
In a 2014 report, investigative journalist David Fahrenthold of The Washington Post called it a “Sinkhole of Bureaucracy.” He detailed how outdated methods and physical storage led to significant federal employee retirement claim processing delays.
I once had a secretary who wouldn’t learn how to use a computer and kept file cabinets filled with paper records. The ugly cabinets lined every wall in the office, and we were running out of space. She had records from 1960. It took a while, but we resolved the problem with modernity, and she retired in disgust.
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