Even those who voted for President Donald Trump and support his efforts to bring radical change to Washington should be deeply concerned about Elon Musk and his team of computer engineers accessing critical systems essential to federal operations, including those which include Americans’ personal, private information and control government spending.
Operating with nebulous legal authority, Musk’s team has recklessly compromised information about millions of Americans — from Social Security recipients to civilian employees at government contractors. Congress should make certain this data is secure and assert its power under the Constitution to ensure payments for Medicaid, Medicare and other federal programs aren’t disrupted.
As he rebuilt his political reputation after inciting a mob to attack the U.S. Capitol four years ago, Trump made no secret of what he would do if he was returned to power. At hundreds of rallies, and in countless TV appearances and interviews, he promised to seek vengeance against his enemies, target the vulnerable, expel immigrants and upend the nation’s role in international affairs.
Only three weeks into his second term, it’s already clear that the United States of the future will be vastly different than the one Americans have known throughout their lives. Trump and his allies have moved with breakneck speed to bend executive agencies to their will, not only by ordering sweeping policy changes but also by infiltrating the technological infrastructure that enables their operations.
Trump signed an executive order on Jan. 20 renaming the U.S. Digital Service the “Department of Government Efficiency,” or DOGE, which references an internet meme. Musk leads the temporary organization as a “special government employee,” according to the White House press secretary, which means he is subject to some ethics and conflict-of-interest rules.
Not that those have constrained him. Despite being a federal contractor whose companies have raked in more than $20 billion from Washington, Musk and a team culled primarily from his private companies have pushed their way into federal agencies and accessed sensitive and even classified computer systems.
Reporting from numerous outlets confirm that Musk’s coders have obtained or sought access to information systems at the U.S. Treasury, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Office of Personnel Management, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Federal Aviation Administration.
The scope could well be greater. The administration won’t discuss what DOGE is doing, and Musk has threatened legal action against journalists probing the team’s activities — including on Friday calling for a Wall Street Journal reporter to be fired for publishing a story about racist and hateful social media posts by Marko Elez, a DOGE coder.
Elez, it’s worth noting, was one of the Musk staffers assigned to the Treasury, where he had access to the systems controlling trillions of dollars in payments made by the federal government as well as information about individual taxpayers, government employees, private companies and federal contractors — including countless businesses in Hampton Roads that work with Washington.
That a 25-year-old with a documented history of hate speech has access to these systems, absent a background check or vetting and without robust oversight, constitutes a five-alarm fire for digital privacy and national security.
There is no transparency, as Musk promised, and there is no restraint. It’s simply the Silicon Valley mantra of “move fast and break things” — only the people doing the breaking have your Social Security number and the things they are breaking are programs that provide food assistance to needy American families or funding for AIDS programs in Africa.
Many of these actions appear to violate a host of federal laws intended to protect sensitive data from being compromised, and several lawsuits challenging DOGE’s work have already been filed. But the courts move slowly even as the damage continues.
While Democratic lawmakers have loudly protested this reckless assault on privacy and federal operations, their Republican colleagues must stand up as well. One can support the overall goal of improving government efficiency while recognizing the danger these actions pose and the fundamental threat to the constitutional order they represent.
