In the first 2 weeks of Donald Trump’s presidency, Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) person reportedly gained entree to halfway parts of the American government’s costs systems, including systems that impact Social Security and Medicare benefits — arsenic national workers and authorities officials struggle to respond.
DOGE, an unofficial “department” which Trump declared portion of the US Digital Service, is purportedly tasked pinch cutting authorities waste. Musk has turned that ngo into a wide gutting of national agencies, including offering national workers months of paid leave billed arsenic “deferred resignation.” But things ramped up moreover much complete the weekend, arsenic Musk and his associates forced retired civilian servants who refused entree to delicate information and machine systems.
The news started connected Friday pinch the departure of a Treasury Department apical profession official. David Lebryk announced his status aft clashing pinch Musk surrogates astir accessing a costs strategy that disburses trillions of dollars for national worker salaries, Social Security, and Medicare, according to The Washington Post. On Saturday, The New York Times reported that Musk now has read-only entree to that system, giving him much penetration and imaginable power complete authorities spending — and likely entree to your Social Security number.
Musk spent overmuch of the play lashing retired astir purported “illegal payments” to charities and accusing, without evidence, profession Treasury officials of “breaking the rule each hr of each time by approving payments that are fraudulent aliases do not lucifer the backing laws passed by Congress.” (The department’s occupation is to facilitate immense numbers of payments vetted by different agencies.)
Career civilian servants astatine the Office of Personnel Management soon recovered themselves locked retired of the agency’s machine strategy that maintains national employees’ individual data, Reuters reported connected Sunday. Unnamed agency officials linked the action to Musk’s aides.
OPM spokesperson McLaurine Pinover told The Verge that the Reuters study was not accurate, but did not elaborate. Representatives for the Treasury Department, US Digital Service, and the US Agency for International Development did not instantly respond to requests for remark connected the caller reporting.
It’s not wholly clear who the alleged Musk proxies are, but Wired reports that astatine slightest respective of the engineers aiding his authorities takeover are conscionable hardly retired of college.
The president said Musk was “doing a bully job,” though he added that, “sometimes we won’t work together pinch it and will not spell wherever he wants to go”
Trump has made fewer comments connected Musk’s actions. Speaking pinch reporters connected the tarmac of Joint Base Andrews connected Sunday, Fox News reports, the president said Musk was “doing a bully job,” though he added that, “sometimes we won’t work together pinch it and will not spell wherever he wants to go, but I deliberation he’s doing a awesome job. He’s a smart guy, very smart, and he’s very overmuch into cutting the fund of our national government.”
Musk has railed successful peculiar against USAID, calling it a “criminal organization.” On Monday he said he and Trump sought to unopen down the agency entirely, without addressing their ineligible authority to do so, NBC News reports. Several Democratic lawmakers said retired against Musk’s effort to upwind down the agency, and said only Congress is capable to make specified a declaration, vowing to conflict the attempted takeover and calling it a law crisis. “Elon, if you want to tally AID, get nominated by Trump and spell to the Senate, and bully luck successful getting confirmed,” says Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA).
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) said Musk’s business interests are astatine the bosom of the Trump administration’s motivations down the changes. “Let’s not propulsion immoderate punches astir why this is happening,” Murphy says. “Elon Musk makes billions of dollars based disconnected of his business pinch China, and China is cheering astatine this action today. There is nary mobility that the billionaire people trying to return complete our authorities correct now is doing it based connected self-interest.” Murphy adds that Musk’s actions correspond a “smoke screen” to “create the illusion that they’re redeeming money” to walk a awesome firm taxation cut.
Musk is pursuing unprecedented entree to authorities systems while moving respective companies — including Tesla, SpaceX, and X — pinch vested interests successful different authorities policies and grudges against different backstage companies. Over the weekend, X expanded its antitrust lawsuit complete an advertiser boycott to see Lego, Nestlé, and Pinterest.
Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) demanded answers from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent connected Musk’s reported entree to the Treasury payments system. And protests extracurricular national buildings person begun popping up, including 1 connected Sunday wherever DC Media Group reports protesters sought to artifact entree to OPM.
Even so, immoderate anonymous Reddit users who identified themselves arsenic authorities employees said they planned to support plugging distant much aliases little arsenic usual. “I’m going to proceed to do my job,” 1 personification writes successful a thread astir really to grip the situation. “Use your headphones and stay unbothered,” says another. Another offers: “head down eyes and ears open.”