The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), run by Elon Musk, has gained access to a sensitive Treasury Department payment system, The New York Times reports.
DOGE is an unofficial entity created by the Trump administration that’s intended to modernize “federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity.” On Friday, newly sworn-in Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent gave Musk’s DOGE team access to the system, which doles out funds submitted by US government agencies. In FY 2023, it disbursed more than $5 trillion, the NYT reports.
The NYT says Musk’s team “have yet to gain operational capabilities and no government payments have been blocked.” But Musk has spent the weekend tweeting about agencies and organizations he thinks should be defunded or shut down, from the US Agency for International Development (USAID) to Lutheran Family Services.
DOGE is reportedly trying to gain access to USAID systems, too, and the standoff led to two top USAID officials resigning over the weekend, CNN reports. The organization’s website is also offline.
DOGE access to the Treasury system came after a long-serving civil servant, David Lebryk, refused to grant access to Musk and others, including Tom Krause, CEO of Cloud Software Group. Lebryk was serving as acting Treasury Secretary prior to Bessent’s swearing in, and had been Fiscal Assistant Secretary at Treasury since 2014. He was placed on administrative leave before abruptly stepping down last week, The Washington Post reports.
On X, Musk claims, without evidence, that DOGE discovered “that payment approval officers at Treasury were instructed always to approve payments, even to known fraudulent or terrorist groups. They literally never denied a payment in their entire career. Not even once.”
The Bureau of Fiscal Service, which oversees the Treasury system, has a payment integrity system that has stopped about $155 million of improper payments and recovered nearly $350 million, Politico reports.
In a Friday letter to Secretary Bessent, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) called the move “disturbing” and said it was a conflict of interest for Musk to have access to the system given the lucrative government contracts held by his various companies.
“These payment systems process more than a billion payments annually and are responsible for the distribution of Social Security and Medicare benefits, tax refunds, payments to federal employees and contractors, including competitors of Musk-owned companies, and thousands of other functions,” Sen. Wyden said.
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“To put it bluntly, these payment systems simply cannot fail, and any politically-motivated meddling in them risks severe damage to our country and the economy,” he added.
On Saturday, Wyden posted on Bluesky that “sources tell my office that Treasury Secretary Bessent has granted DOGE full access to this system. Social Security and Medicare benefits, grants, payments to government contractors, including those that compete directly with Musk’s own companies. All of it.”
Wyden expressed concern that “Musk’s enormous business operations in China…endangers US cybersecurity and creates conflicts of interest that make his access to these systems a national security risk.”
President Trump has yet to weigh in on the controversy; he is instead posting on Truth Social about the tariffs he just imposed on Canada, Mexico, and China.
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About Will McCurdy
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