Days after his swearing-in, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent gave Elon Musk and his team at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (which despite its name, is not an official government department), access to the agency’s federal payments system, which essentially operates as the country’s central bank account.
The move, which could potentially provide Musk a view into the personal information of tens and millions of Americans, prompted instant alarm over the weekend. Now Democrats are demanding answers.
On Monday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) sent a letter to Bessent, calling the decision “extraordinarily dangerous,” while hitting at Musk’s DOGE team as “unqualified flunkies.”
“It is extraordinarily dangerous to meddle with the critical systems that process trillions of dollars of transactions each year, are essential to preventing a default on federal debt, and ensure that tens of millions of Americans receive their Social Security checks, tax refunds, and Medicare benefits,” Warren wrote.
She continued: “I am alarmed that as one of your first acts as Secretary, you appear to have handed over a highly sensitive system responsible for millions of Americans’ private data—and a key function of government—to an unelected billionaire and an unknown number of his unqualified flunkies.”
Warren’s concerns are far from hyperbole. As my colleague Pema Levy wrote:
Treasury’s payment system processes more than $5 trillion annually, paying the country’s bills. This includes Social Security checks and tax refunds, which means the system includes sensitive personal information on tens of millions of Americans. A Sunday headline from New York Magazine, “Elon Musk May Have Your Social Security Number,” is not an exaggeration.
In her letter, Warren warned Bessent that by letting Musk have access to such private information, the Trump administration could “unilaterally and illegally” cut off payments for millions of Americans, based on political favoritism” or the whims of Musk.
As my colleague Michael Mechanic wrote, the tech mogul has made it clear that he intends to cut government spending by “gutting the federal workforce, eliminating certain agencies, slashing regulations, ending selected entitlements, and, as a corollary, privatizing as much as possible as quickly as possible.”
It appears that Musk has not publicly addressed Warren’s letter, but he did retweet the following post from Republican influencer, Rogan O’Handley, better known as DC_Draino, who claimed that Musk was indeed elected alongside Trump (not true) and is doing exactly what voters expect from him.
Dems keep saying “No one elected Elon Musk”
Yes we did
Elon was very visible with Trump and we elected Trump to utilize Elon in cleaning out corruption in our government
Same goes for Tulsi, RFK, and Kash
We voted for ALL of these people to do exactly what they’re doing https://t.co/mOx1U5UKq4
— DC_Draino (@DC_Draino) February 2, 2025
