Elon Musk’s DOGE Teams Raise Vetting, Ethics Concerns

Over the last several days, reporters have revealed that an Elon Musk-helmed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team at the Treasury Department sought and has accessed sensitive government payment databases, prompting concern that private information may be at heightened risk of being compromised. The affiliations of some of those DOGE team members have further fueled concerns that the data may be misused to benefit Musk’s private interests.

A software engineer who has been employed at X and SpaceX is serving on this DOGE team, as first reported by Wired and independently corroborated by a federal record obtained by the Project On Government Oversight (POGO). Others connected to this DOGE team include at least two people who have been described as “Musk allies” by the New York Times.  

The broad access granted to the DOGE team, the fact that they can access information on industry rivals, and questions around how much they have been vetted have raised alarms within Congress and the public. The Treasury Department, individuals connected with its DOGE team, and the White House did not respond to POGO’s requests for comment. However, the department responded to some of these concerns in a letter on Wednesday to a U.S. senator.

These staffers and others affiliated with Musk who’ve been installed throughout the executive branch raise questions about the influence of the world’s richest person, whose companies have substantial federal contracts and are affected by federal regulations — and whether the government is doing enough to protect the integrity of its operations. At Treasury, the DOGE team has been granted “full access” to data in systems at the department’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service. According to Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), this data includes info on “Social Security and Medicare benefits, grants, payments to government contractors, including those that compete directly with Musk’s own companies. All of it.”

Experts say the Treasury Department’s payment system serves essentially as the government’s “checkbook.” Musk says his DOGE team needs access to identify waste and fraud. “The @DOGE team discovered, among other things, that payment approval officers at Treasury were instructed always to approve payments, even to known fraudulent or terrorist groups,” Musk has tweeted. “They literally never denied a payment in their entire career. Not even once.” 

Musk has provided no evidence, and a Democratic staffer for the Senate Finance Committee, which oversees the Treasury Department, told USA Today that the agencies that award contracts, grants, loans, and other payments are responsible for identifying entities that should not receive federal dollars. Treasury does run a system called “Do Not Pay” that “agencies can use at no cost to check many data sources at one time to verify a recipient’s eligibility for payment.”

Now on the Treasury DOGE team, the verified X (formerly Twitter) account of Marko Elez said he works on “AI @X” and previously on “flight software at @SpaceX.” (These details have since been deleted, but POGO archived a screenshot of his account prior to those  deletions.) His LinkedIn profile has also been deleted, but other sites corroborate his information as provided on X and contain more details. A screenshot of his X account from Monday shows only three tweets, including one reposting a Musk tweet about cutting the federal workforce and another where Musk wrote that “Media reports saying that @DOGE has some of world’s best software engineers are in fact true.” 

Wired reported earlier this week, citing two sources, that Elez has access that allows him to modify software code inside key Treasury payments systems. “These systems control, on a granular level, government payments that in their totality amount to more than a fifth of the US economy,” reported Wired. The Treasury Department on Wednesday disputed that reporting. “Treasury staff members working with Tom Krause, a Treasury employee, will have read-only access to the coded data of the Fiscal Service’s payment systems,” wrote Jonathan Blum, the department’s principal deputy assistant secretary for legislative affairs.

Even still, the DOGE team’s push for payment data access sparked the resignation of the Treasury Department’s highest-ranking official who isn’t a political appointee, which the Washington Post first reported. It is prompting the introduction of legislation, according to Representative Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), the minority leader in the House of Representatives.

The DOGE team’s level of access has led to an outcry. “The scale of the intrusion into individuals’ privacy is massive and unprecedented,” states a lawsuit brought on Monday by the Alliance for Retired Americans, the American Federation of Government Employees, and the Service Employees International Union. “Millions of people cannot avoid engaging in financial transactions with the federal government and, therefore, cannot avoid having their sensitive personal and financial information maintained in government records.” 

Some Democratic lawmakers are raising questions about how much individuals on the DOGE team have been vetted, particularly if they have had no prior government role. That vetting examines people for relationships that could raise national security or government integrity concerns.

“It is longstanding Treasury Department procedure to restrict access to this system to a handful of individuals who have undergone a full background investigation evaluating criminal history, foreign ties, trustworthiness, and finances, among other issues,” Senator Jack Reed (D-RI) wrote in a letter to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. “This deviation from Treasury practice follows an emerging pattern of DOGE impeding fundamental government functions, placing taxpayer funds at risk, and intruding on Americans’ privacy — actions that have placed the special interests of a small group of well-connected individuals above American families.” 

POGO found no public indication that Elez has formerly worked for the government, although SpaceX has numerous federal contracts. Another person associated with the DOGE team at Treasury, Baris Akis, did not have a security clearance during a number of early meetings, according to CNN. 

In its Wednesday letter sent to Senator Wyden, the Treasury Department’s Blum directly addressed only one person associated with the DOGE effort, Tom Krause, a technology executive. According to the letter, Krause went through “a hiring process that includes a review of a candidate’s credentials and background, and demands the same ethical standards of privacy, confidentiality, conflicts of interest assessment, and professionalism of other government employees.” The department stated that the reviews were conducted by career employees and that “Mr. Krause is subject to the same security obligations and ethical requirements, including a Top Secret security clearance.”

The concerns about conflicts of interest are not just that Musk is potentially pulling strings inside government and gaining access to sensitive information that could advantage his companies and disadvantage rivals. Wyden also asked Bessent in a letter whether the Treasury Department has “done any vetting of potential conflicts of interest posed by Elon Musk’s significant business operations in China prior to granting him access to the Fiscal Service’s payment systems or any other Treasury databases.” The Treasury Department did not directly address this in its letter to Wyden.

“We have a shadow government right now,” a former high-ranking official, who requested anonymity for fear of professional repercussions, told POGO. “At least Trump was elected … [but] are all these people being vetted for their loyalty to Shadow President Musk?”

President Donald Trump said on Monday that the White House will ensure Musk does not go too far and that the White House has the ultimate say in decision-making. “Elon can’t do and won’t do anything without our approval, and we’ll give him the approval, where appropriate; where not appropriate, we won’t. But he reports in.” Trump explained.

“If there’s a conflict, then we won’t let him get near it,” he said.

DOGE team members can be “special government employees,” according to a White House executive order, which allows them to maintain private sector employment. Special government employees, like all other federal workers, are subject to conflict of interest restrictions. The White House on Monday revealed that Musk himself is a special government employee, and a spokesperson said “he has abided by all applicable federal laws.” Such arrangements have drawn controversy in the past. Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s aide Huma Abedin drew scrutiny for having private sector jobs while working at the State Department during the Obama administration.   

Typically, agency officials who focus on complying with ethics rules examine whether any individuals in federal employment, including special government employees, have conflicts of interest. Separately, there are also background check investigations to ensure individuals can be trusted with sensitive information. On January 20, President Trump issued an order allowing him to immediately grant temporary top-secret clearances to personnel working for the Executive Office of the President, which the DOGE effort is housed within. Each DOGE team is supposed to consist of at least four people, including an engineer.

Others who have been employed at Musk’s companies have fanned out across the federal government. News reports have identified some Musk-affiliated employees in multiple agencies — such as the Office of Personnel Management, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the General Services Administration. The names of staff on DOGE teams across the government have not been proactively released. 

Given the power Musk has in the current administration, and the widespread access granted to DOGE staffers, this secrecy has fueled interest in the people on the DOGE teams.

However, DOGE’s placement within the Executive Office of the President creates a potential barrier to Freedom of Information Act requests for federal records. There’s a carveout that bars the law’s reach from records created by those “whose sole function is to advise and assist the President.”