The Trump administration had given Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) access to the federal payments system that controls the flow of trillions of dollars in government funds every year.
Doge is not a government department, but a team within the administration and has been granted access to the sensitive private information of American citizens.
Doge’s access was confirmed on Bluesky by Ron Wyden, a Democratic senator from Oregon.
This occurred as a result of the director of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) John Voorhees and his deputy Brian McGill being placed on leave after denying Doge personal access to secure areas over their lack of security clearances.
In response to not being allowed clearance, Musk took to his social media platform, X to call USAID a “criminal organisation”.
“Time for it to die,” Musk posted.
Katie Miller, a spokesperson for X also wrote that “no classified material was accessed without proper security clearance”.
At the same time, the federal workforce has been grappling with multiple executive orders signed by Trump.
This includes the Trump administration scrubbing references to LGBT health and information on certain vaccines from federal websites, including top public health agencies and pulling back diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs.
Big banks like Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs have all defended their DEI programs while companies including Target have pulled back on theirs.
