Elon Musk Might Have Your Social Safety Quantity


Hope you belief this man.
Photograph: Kenny Holston/Getty Photos
The world’s richest man could now have entry to the confidential private data of each taxpayer in the US. In line with the New York Instances and Wall Avenue Journal, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Friday granted Elon Musk and his minions on the faux-agency DOGE full entry to the Treasury’s large federal cost system. As with the remainder of Musk’s wide-reaching challenge throughout the U.S. authorities beneath Donald Trump, it’s in no way clear what he plans to do with this unprecedented entry.
Additionally on Friday, the highest civil servant on the Treasury Division, David Lebryk, was apparently ousted after he refused to present Division of Authorities Effectivity officers entry to the system — or moderately, per the Instances, he “was placed on depart after which abruptly retired on Friday after the dispute, in keeping with individuals accustomed to his exit.”
Lebryk had labored at Treasury for 3 a long time, and had been the Trump-named appearing Treasury secretary till Bessent was confirmed by the Senate on Monday. Per a supply who spoke with CNN:
In line with one individual accustomed to the division, Trump-affiliated workers had beforehand requested about Treasury’s potential to cease funds. However Lebryk’s pushback was, “We don’t try this,” the individual mentioned. “They appear to need Treasury to be the chokepoint on funds, and that’s unprecedented,” the individual added, emphasizing that it isn’t the bureau’s function to determine which funds to make — it’s “simply to make the f-ing funds.”
Provides the Washington Submit:
Usually solely a small variety of profession officers management Treasury’s cost programs. Run by the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, the delicate programs management the circulate of greater than $6 trillion yearly to households, companies and extra nationwide. Tens, if not lots of, of tens of millions of individuals throughout the nation depend on the programs, that are accountable for distributing Social Safety and Medicare advantages, salaries for federal personnel, funds to authorities contractors and grant recipients, and tax refunds, amongst tens of hundreds of different features.
And because the Journal highlights:
Any interruption in its operation may end in far-reaching financial disruption. Throughout negotiations over elevating the debt ceiling, considerations in regards to the continued efficiency of the cost system are on the core of the anxiousness on Wall Avenue and in Washington.
The Journal additionally experiences that “an individual accustomed to the association mentioned DOGE representatives received’t have direct authority to cease particular person funds or make different modifications, describing their entry as ‘learn solely’”:
Bessent accepted the association on the situation that the DOGE representatives’ exercise be documented and monitored. DOGE representatives intend to overview the general effectivity of the cost system, the individual mentioned.
The report doesn’t particular who may be doing that monitoring; the Treasury Division’s inspector common was one of many 15 unbiased company watchdogs the Trump White Home purged every week in the past.
So now Musk and DOGE have entry to and doubtlessly energy over what’s mainly America’s checkbook, weeks earlier than one other debt ceiling disaster looms, at a time when Musk is vowing to in some way reduce a hysterically great amount of federal spending, and through a chaotic interval through which he and different officers within the Trump administration are working roughshod throughout the federal authorities like they’ve unchecked energy. On Saturday, Musk was already making wild unsubstantiated claims on X about what his DOGE investigators had found about federal cost processes. On Sunday, he alleged that “profession Treasury officers are breaking the regulation each hour of daily by approving funds which can be fraudulent or don’t match the funding legal guidelines handed by Congress.” He additionally mentioned that “the DOGE group” was “shutting down” “unlawful funds.”
However imprecise bluster apart, it’s not really clear what Musk and his DOGE and White Home allies intend to do with the federal cost system or the data it holds. The chief director of the progressive financial suppose tank Groundwork Collaborative, Lindsay Owens, notes some troubling prospects in an MSNBC op-ed:
First, accessing the Treasury’s cost system might be a path to freezing authorities funding, because the administration tried earlier this week. Musk may halt funds to applications like Medicaid, Meals on Wheels, Head Begin and extra, maneuvering across the courts. Musk has already directed his engineers to search out methods to show off the circulate of cash to applications he and President Donald Trump oppose. With the keys to the Treasury’s cost system, he can unilaterally reduce off these funds proper on the supply.
Musk may additionally get his fingers on the “Do Not Pay” system that lists people or contractors the federal government has blacklisted, theoretically granting him management over whom the federal government does enterprise with. Authorities contracts have been central to Musk’s $400 billion internet price; his firms have signed billions of {dollars}’ price of presidency contracts. He may simply place his rivals on the Do Not Pay checklist or flip the spigot again on for mates who’ve been blacklisted.
The Treasury gatecrashing additionally comes on the identical time that the Musk and his group are facilitating a “hostile takeover” of the Workplace of Personnel Administration, which is the equal of the federal authorities’s HR division. Reuters experiences that senior OPM officers have been locked out of the company laptop system and no person is aware of what the DOGE individuals are doing with OPM’s knowledge. That follows Musk and the DOGE denizens’ try and intestine the federal workforce with a take-it-or-leave-it buyout e mail, and simply earlier than that, the Trump White Home’s haphazard now-blocked try and freeze all federal spending with a single memo.
Political scientist Seth Masket is sounding the alarm, as properly:
There are a lot of disturbing features of this. However maybe essentially the most basic is that Elon Musk is just not a federal worker, nor has he been appointed by the President nor accepted by the Senate to have any management function in authorities. The “Division of Authorities Effectivity,” introduced by Trump in a January twentieth govt order, is just not really any form of authorities division or company, and even the chief order makes use of quotes within the title. It’s completely high-quality to have a advertising and marketing gimmick like this, however DOGE does not have energy over established authorities companies, and Musk has no function in authorities. It doesn’t matter that he’s an ally of the President. Musk is a personal citizen taking management of established authorities places of work. That’s not effectivity; that could be a coup.
And Musk bought it for virtually nothing. All it value to realize entry to America’s monetary knowledge, the federal government’s Social Safety checkbook, and presumably each U.S. taxpayer’s private data was $288 million in political donations to assist elect Donald Trump. That’s peanuts to any person price greater than $420 billion.
This publish has been up to date.