Elon Musk is staging a takeover of the federal budget
In the first two weeks of Donald Trump’s presidency, Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have reportedly gained access to core parts of the American government’s payment systems, including systems that affect Social Security and Medicare benefits — as federal workers and government officials struggle to respond.
DOGE, an unofficial “department” that Trump declared part of the US Digital Service, is purportedly tasked with cutting government waste. Musk has turned that mission into a broad gutting of federal agencies, including offering federal workers months of paid leave billed as “deferred resignation.” But things ramped up even more over the weekend, as Musk and his associates forced out civil servants who refused access to sensitive data and computer systems.
The news started on Friday with the departure of a Treasury Department top career official. David Lebryk announced his retirement after clashing with Musk surrogates about accessing a payment system that disburses trillions of dollars for federal worker salaries, Social Security, and Medicare, according to The Washington Post. On Saturday, The New York Times reported that Musk now has read-only access to that system, giving him more insight and potential control over government spending — and likely access to your Social Security number.
Musk spent much of the weekend lashing out about purported “illegal payments” to charities and accusing, without evidence, career Treasury officials of “breaking the law every hour of every day by approving payments that are fraudulent or do not match the funding laws passed by Congress.” (The department’s job is to facilitate vast numbers of payments vetted by other agencies.)
Career civil servants at the Office of Personnel Management soon found themselves locked out of the agency’s computer system that maintains federal employees’ personal data, Reuters reported on Sunday. Unnamed agency officials linked the action to Musk’s aides.
OPM spokesperson McLaurine Pinover told The Verge that the Reuters report was not accurate but did not elaborate. Representatives for the Treasury Department, US Digital Service, and the US Agency for International Development did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the recent reporting.
It’s not entirely clear who the alleged Musk proxies are, but Wired reports that at least several of the engineers aiding his government takeover are just barely out of college.
The president said Musk was “doing a good job,” though he added that, “sometimes we won’t agree with it and will not go where he wants to go”
Trump has made few comments on Musk’s actions. Speaking with reporters on the tarmac of Joint Base Andrews on Sunday, Fox News reports, the president said Musk was “doing a good job,” though he added that, “sometimes we won’t agree with it and will not go where he wants to go, but I think he’s doing a great job. He’s a smart guy, very smart, and he’s very much into cutting the budget of our federal government.”
Musk has railed in particular against USAID, calling it a “criminal organization.” On Monday he said he and Trump sought to shut down the agency entirely, without addressing their legal authority to do so, NBC News reports. Several Democratic lawmakers spoke out against Musk’s attempt to wind down the agency and said only Congress is able to make such a declaration, vowing to fight the attempted takeover and calling it a constitutional crisis. “Elon, if you want to run AID, get nominated by Trump and go to the Senate, and good luck in getting confirmed,” says Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA).
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) said Musk’s business interests are at the heart of the Trump administration’s motivations behind the changes. “Let’s not pull any punches about why this is happening,” Murphy says. “Elon Musk makes billions of dollars based off of his business with China, and China is cheering at this action today. There is no question that the billionaire class trying to take over our government right now is doing it based on self-interest.” Murphy adds that Musk’s actions represent a “smoke screen” to “create the illusion that they’re saving money” to pass a major corporate tax cut.
Musk is pursuing unprecedented access to government systems while running several companies — including Tesla, SpaceX, and X — with vested interests in different government policies and grudges against other private companies. Over the weekend, X expanded its antitrust lawsuit over an advertiser boycott to include Lego, Nestlé, and Pinterest.
Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) demanded answers from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Musk’s reported access to the Treasury payments system. And protests outside federal buildings have begun popping up, including one on Sunday where DC Media Group reports protesters sought to block access to OPM.
Even so, some anonymous Reddit users who identified themselves as government employees said they planned to keep plugging away more or less as usual. “I’m going to continue to do my job,” one user writes in a thread about how to handle the situation. “Use your headphones and remain unbothered,” says another. Another offers: “head down eyes and ears open.”
Are you a US federal government worker? Reach out securely with tips to Lauren Feiner via Signal at laurenfeiner.64.
Continue Reading…
The Verge
