People working for, or with, Elon Musk are reportedly taking over the inner workings of multiple government agencies, including the Office of Personnel Management and the Treasury Department.
The Washington Post reported Friday that the highest-ranking career official at Treasury is leaving the department after “a clash” with people working for Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) over “access to sensitive payment systems,” citing three unnamed sources.
The DOGE officials have been asking for access to the system — which controls the flow of more than $6 trillion annually to programs like Social Security and Medicare — since after the election in November. The Trump administration has been looking for ways to stop the flow federal money appropriated by Congress, including hastily ordering a confusing spending freeze, which experts say violates the constitution.
Reuters also reported Friday that Musk aides have “locked career civil servants out of computer systems that contain the personal data of millions of federal employees,” citing two unnamed agency officials.
Across the government, tech workers are being grilled and subjected to code reviews by Musk aides, Wired reported Thursday. Musk and his team also appears to have been involved a recent government-wide email offering employees the chance to resign.
Musk’s disruption of the federal government so far tracks closely to the chaotic days following his takeover of Twitter, as detailed by books like “Character Limit” and other reporting from the time.
It represents an unprecedented power grab within the U.S. government, and one that directly contradicts the original stated purpose of DOGE. When Donald Trump first announced it in November after he won the election, the idea was to set up DOGE as an entity outside the federal government that would make recommendations on where to cut spending.
That’s not what happened.
After his inauguration, Trump signed an executive order that renamed the U.S. Digital Service to the “U.S. DOGE service,” meaning Musk is now working inside the government. He reportedly has an office in the West Wing of the White House, but is also apparently sleeping at the DOGE office, according to Wired.
