Elon Musk and DOGE are hacking the government

Elon Musk and DOGE are hacking the government


NBC NEWS

In the shorthand of the tech industry, Elon Musk has hacked into the government.

The billionaire tech magnate has never been elected to office or been confirmed by the Senate for a high-level government job, but in the span of a few days, Musk has still gained access to sensitive federal data through his position as head of President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency project, or DOGE, to push a far-reaching agenda and potentially spark a constitutional crisis.

Musk has embraced Silicon Valley’s most notorious instincts to “move fast and break things” in a lightning battle to muscle into the computer systems and power structures of federal agencies. As he did with his corporate takeover of Twitter in 2022, he has brought in a team to assess details such as office building leases, budget line items, vendor contracts and the performance of individual employees — with the stated intention of radically downsizing the organization.

With a cadre of engineers as young as 19 years old, and with the encouragement of Trump, Musk has demanded and been given access to sensitive government databases and the Treasury Department’s payment system with an unprecedented series of bureaucratic maneuvers.

There are deep concerns among many Democrats and some Republicans that Musk — and his staff members who are not government workers and are not bound by the same ethics and rules that apply to federal workers — are acting in secret, without accountability and potentially against the law in the Trump administration’s effort to shrink the federal government.

DOGE is an office within the Executive Office of the President, according to a Trump executive order from Jan. 20, and Musk has been named a “special government employee,” according to a White House official. It is a temporary position that allows him greater access, but it also bypasses some of the disclosure obligations required of full-time government employees.

DOGE’s targets include the U.S. Agency for International Development, which closed its headquarters Monday in anticipation of shutting down entirely. Musk’s DOGE has staff members working at the Treasury Department, which pays the government’s bills, and he has said on X that he wants to slash or overhaul the Government Accountability Office and the Education Department.

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