Musk team given access to sensitive federal payment system - reports

The Trump administration has given Elon Musk's deputies access to the federal payments system that controls the flow of trillions of dollars in government funds every year, US media report.

Reports suggest members of Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) - which is not a government department, but a team within the administration - have been granted access to sensitive personal information of millions of Americans.

Two officials at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) were reportedly placed on leave after a standoff with Doge members over access.

The White House and the Treasury Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Just days after President Donald Trump announced its launch, Doge has fanned out to a number of US government agencies with the stated mission of slashing federal spending.

Musk helped set up the team in order to carry out this effort, bringing allies from his private companies and Silicon Valley to assist the process.

Those efforts appear to be causing turmoil within agencies like the Treasury Department and USAID, which the Tesla boss has repeatedly attacked on social media.

On X, the social media platform he owns, the billionaire called USAID "evil" and claimed that Treasury employees "are breaking the law every hour of every day".

The Treasury division accessed by Doge handles payments of nearly $6 trillion for programmes like Social Security, pays government salaries, and distributes money allotted by Congress.

The access to the payment system was granted by incoming Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Friday, the same day when a longtime Treasury official named David Lebryk was placed on administrative leave and suddenly retired, the New York Times reported.

The newspaper said Mr Lebryk had strongly resisted allowing "Musk's lieutenants into the department's payment system, which sends out money on behalf of the entire federal government".

Typically, only a handful of Treasury employees work on the payments system.

"To put it bluntly, these payment systems simply cannot fail, and any politically-motivated meddling in them risks severe damage to our country and the economy," US Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, wrote in a letter to Bessent.

"I am concerned that mismanagement of these payment systems could threaten the full faith and credit of the United States," he wrote.

Musk's allies are also causing turbulence at the USAID, which distributes billions in aid around the world. The agency's website has not worked since Saturday and its X account appears to have been deactivated.

The Trump administration reportedly placed two senior security officials on administrative leave after they resisted Doge team members who arrived at the agency seeking access to a secure facility, or a "Scif", the Washington Post reported on Sunday.

Such facilities are used to store and share highly classified information and are often highly restricted.

"No classified material was accessed without proper security clearances," Katie Miller, a spokesperson for Doge, wrote on X.

Meanwhile, the federal workforce has been grappling with the multiple executive orders signed by Trump since taking office.

Employees have received letters from the Office of Personnel Management asking them to report their colleagues who are attempting to "disguise" diversity efforts, as well as an offer to take paid resignations -- an offer many employees view with suspicion.

Agencies have scrambled to pull down references to diversity, equity and inclusion, as well as transgender and LGBT individuals from their websites in order to comply with the executive orders.

A raft of such information has disappeared from the website for the Centers for Disease Control. The critical health agency serves as a repository for vetted, reliable scientific and medical information for researchers, medical professionals, and everyday Americans.

Now, links to information about LGBT health for adults and minors, as well as mpox vaccines, lead to broken pages.

DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) programmes aim to promote participation in workplaces by people from a range of backgrounds.

Their backers say they address historical or ongoing discrimination and underrepresentation of certain groups, including racial minorities, but critics argue such programmes can themselves be discriminatory.