Elon Musk’s government-slashing crew, the “department of government efficiency”, has been given access to the federal payment system, exposing the sensitive personal data of millions of Americans as well as details of public contractors who compete directly with Musk’s own businesses, a influential US senator has confirmed, The Guardian reported.
Ron Wydan, a Democratic senator from Oregon and the ranking member of the Senate finance committee posted on Bluesky that sources had confirmed to him that the Treasury’s highly-sensitive database had been opened up to the tech billionaire and his team.
Donald Trump’s new treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, had granted the billionaire’s Doge team “full access to this system.”
Wyden added that the data bonanza included “social security and medicare benefits, grants, payments to government contractors … All of it.”
Confirmation to the arrangement suggests that Musk, the world’s richest person, now has entry to one of the most sensitive US government databases. The system controls more than $6tn of federal cash flow each year, with millions of Americans depending on it for social security and medicare benefit, federal salaries, and more.
TechCrunch reported: A senior U.S. lawmaker says representatives of Elon Musk were granted “full access” to a U.S. Treasury payments system used to disperse trillions of dollars to Americans each year, and warned that Musk’s access to the system poses “a national security risk.”
Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democratic senator from Oregon and ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, said in a post on Bluesky on Saturday that sources told his office Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent gave Musk’s team, known as the Department Of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, authorization to access the highly sensitive Treasury system on Friday. The authorization comes following a standoff earlier in the week, in which the Treasury’s highest-ranking career official left the department following requests from Musk’s team for access to the system.
“Social Security and Medicare benefits, grants, payments to government contractors, including those that compete directly with Musk’s own companies. All if it,” wrote Wyden in the post, referring to DOGE’s access.
Fortune reported: The Trump administration’s placed two top security chiefs at the U.S. Agency for International Development on leave after they refused to turn over classified material in restricted areas to Elon Musk’s government-inspection teams, a current and former U.S. official told The Associated Press.
Members of Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE, eventually did gain access Saturday to the aid agency’s classified information, which includes intelligence reports, the former official said.
Musk’s DOGE crew lacked high-enough security clearance to access that information, so the two USAID security officials — John Vorhees and deputy Brian McGill — were legally obligated to deny access.
In my opinion, I don’t think it is a good idea to have the richest man in the world access to the U.S. Treasury. Elon Musk has plenty of money was not elected to any governmental office.