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, an influential US senator has confirmed.
Ron Wyden, 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 of 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 benefits, federal salaries, and more.
Until now, the information stored on it has been exceptionally closely guarded, with only a select few officials having clearance to control it. But since the advent of the Trump administration on 20 January, members of Musk’s Doge team have been battering to be given access.
On Friday, the Washington Post revealed that the Treasury Department’s top civil servant had retired after more than 30 years of service. David Lebryk had clashed with Musk associates over their efforts to effectively break into the system.
According to the New York Times, Lebryk had been placed on administrative leave after he objected to Doge agents being given access. The newspaper reported that the incoming treasury secretary, Bessent, gave his permission to the new deal late on Friday.
Under the arrangement, the Times reported, one of the Doge members who can now scour the data of millions of Americans is Tom Krause, chief executive of the tech company Cloud Software Group.
Before confirming the deal, Wyden had already sounded the alarm about Musk’s attempts to break into such a sensitive federal database. On Friday he wrote to Bessent warning that the system was so critical “it simply cannot fail”.
Wyden warned that “any politically-motivated meddling in them risks severe damage to our country and the economy. I can think of no good reason why political operators who have demonstrated a blatant disregard for the law would need access to these sensitive, mission-critical systems.”
One of the fears about granting entry to the system to a freewheeling outfit controlled by Musk is that he could use it to block payments to a large number of federal programs as part of his mission to slash and burn the US government. Wyden also suggested that the move could pose a national security threat, given Musk’s extensive business interests in China, which in turn could give the Chinese intelligence services a pipeline into US data.
This “endangers US cybersecurity and creates conflicts of interest that make [Musk’s] access to these systems a national security risk,” Wyden said.
