Musk Moves With Lightning Speed to Exert Control Over the Government
The billionaire’s representatives gained access to a Treasury Department payment system and sensitive documents at USAID
Updated Feb. 2, 2025
Elon Musk’s allies are moving swiftly to exert control over vast swaths of the U.S. government, as they demand access to sensitive information at federal agencies and lay out plans to block spending they deem excessive.
Musk, the billionaire adviser to President Trump who runs the Department of Government Efficiency, oversaw a successful effort by his representatives to get direct access to a payment system that distributes trillions of dollars to Americans each year. And individuals working for DOGE accessed the U.S. Agency for International Development following a clash with security officials.
The moves marked the start of a far-reaching campaign by Musk to upend the federal government agency by agency, according to his allies. The effort prompted outrage from Democrats, and some Republicans, who said Musk doesn’t have the authority to overturn programs and spending priorities decided by Congress. They also raised concerns about the nature of Musk’s operation, which is run by individuals with ties to the tech sector who haven’t been confirmed by the Senate and could benefit financially from the actions DOGE takes.
“This is completely unprecedented,” said Richard Painter, the chief White House ethics lawyer under former President George W. Bush. “I’ve never seen anything like this before.”
DOGE had initially been conceived as an outside advisory panel. But Trump signed an executive order shortly after taking office that established the group within the executive branch. Much about DOGE’s operations remains murky. The Trump administration hasn’t released a list of people working for DOGE or outlined their potential conflicts of interest, and officials haven’t detailed which contracts they have canceled.
Throughout the weekend, Musk posted dozens of messages on X, the social-media platform he owns, where he has amassed more than 215 million followers. He said he planned to shut down some Health and Human Services Department grants, and asserted, without providing evidence, that terrorist groups had received payments processed by the Treasury Department. (The Treasury Department has a Do-Not-Pay system designed to prevent that.)
He criticized a Republican senator who could be a crucial vote on Trump’s nominees and then walked back his attack. He said he was on track to cut federal spending by $4 billion a day, though he didn’t specify how he was reducing costs. He said career Treasury officials were routinely making illegal payments. The Treasury press office didn’t respond on Sunday to a request for comment.
“Very few in the bureaucracy actually work the weekend, so it’s like the opposing team just leaves the field for 2 days!” Musk wrote on X on Saturday.
Trump offered support for Musk on Sunday night, speaking to reporters at Joint Base Andrews. “I think Elon is doing a good job,” Trump said. “He’s a big cost-cutter. Sometimes we won’t agree with it, and we’ll not go where he wants to go. But I think he’s doing a great job. He’s a smart guy.” Trump added that “radical lunatics” are running USAID.
USAID must ‘die’
On Saturday, roughly eight DOGE representatives sought access to classified systems and floors at USAID’s building in downtown Washington, according to current and former USAID officials and senior Senate Democratic congressional aides.
Security officials initially resisted the DOGE representatives’ requests, which some people familiar with the confrontation say included demands for access to personnel information. The security officials, John Voorhees and his deputy, were then put on administrative leave for not complying, the people said.
The DOGE representatives were given access to at least the Executive Secretariat, a nerve center for coordination and communication for the agency’s highest levels, and the office of the General Counsel, the current USAID official and the Senate Democratic aide said. They also sought access to the office of the Inspector General, but it was unclear if they were able to enter.
They eventually got access to some classified information, three of the people familiar with the matter said, though it is unclear what they intend to do with it or if those in possession of the information have the security clearances required to see it. Matt Hopson, USAID’s Trump-appointed chief of staff, has stepped down, according to a current and former USAID official.
In a social-media post, White House spokesman Steven Cheung called media reports about DOGE representatives getting access to secure spaces at USAID “fake news.” White House and DOGE spokespeople didn’t respond to requests for comment.
“The potential access of sensitive, even classified, files, which may include the personally identifiable information…of Americans working with USAID, and this incident as a whole, raises deep concerns about the protection and safeguarding of matters related to U.S. national security,” Democratic lawmakers on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee wrote in a Saturday letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
The episode unfolded as Musk worked to disassemble the 10,000-person, $40 billion agency and rein in its autonomy. Musk posted on X over the weekend that USAID was a corrupt organization filled with Marxist staffers, providing no evidence for his broadsides. “USAID is a criminal organization,” he wrote in one post. “Time for it to die.” Trump planned to release an executive order folding the USAID into the State Department.
USAID.gov, the agency’s website, was taken offline and placed into a subsection of State’s website. Then USAID’s X account was also removed, leaving behind a message that reads: “This account doesn’t exist.”
Getting access to Treasury’s payment system
On Friday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent granted DOGE representatives access to the Treasury Department’s payment system, which is typically run by career civil servants and distributes entitlement benefits, grants and tax refunds to millions of Americans each year.
Former Treasury Department officials who worked in Republican and Democratic administrations said they weren’t aware of any instances in which political appointees sought access to the payment network, which they likened to the pipes that allow federal money to flow into and out of the government.
While political appointees would have needed to understand the capabilities and operations of the system, having direct access to the system wouldn’t have been necessary to provide that knowledge, these people said. During debt-limit standoffs, for example, when the Treasury was employing emergency cash-conservation measures, policymakers received daily reports on payment inflows and outflows or the recipients of those payments from the civil-service network administrators without requiring access to the payment infrastructure, the former officials said.
Several of the former officials said the payment system includes information about sensitive national security-related transactions that would typically require strict security clearances to access.
Tom Krause, a Musk ally and the chief executive at Cloud Software Group, led the discussions with Treasury over the arrangement, the person said. Krause, who is working with DOGE, is among those expected to gain access to the system.
Through it all, Musk kept posting on social media.
He responded on Sunday to a spreadsheet of Lutheran charity payments shared online by Mike Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser who was pardoned in 2020 after pleading guilty to lying about his contact with Russians. There were “many more organizations cashing in” on taxpayer money, Flynn wrote on X.
“The @DOGE team is rapidly shutting down these illegal payments,” Musk replied.
He also criticized Indiana Republican Sen. Todd Young, calling him a “deep state puppet” in a post on X that he later deleted.
Musk, in a subsequent X post on Sunday, said he stood “corrected” after speaking with the senator. Young’s office said the Senator and Musk had a conversation on topics of “shared interest, like DOGE.”
“Senator Young will be a great ally in restoring power to the people from the vast, unelected bureaucracy,” Musk wrote.
Richard Rubin, Nick Timiraos and Michael R. Gordon contributed to this article.
Write to Alexander Ward at alex.ward@wsj.com and Ginger Adams Otis at Ginger.AdamsOtis@wsj.com
Copyright ©2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
Appeared in the February