Elon Musk and his team's intrusion into sensitive government computer networks is creating a grave national security risk, according to some of the federal officials he sent packing.
President Donald Trump tasked his billionaire benefactor with reducing the federal workforce through the newly created Department of Government Efficiency, and Musk and his minions have gained access to private data and payment systems throughout the government. But some former employees who've worked on those networks say there's great potential for harm, reported The Atlantic.
“You are controlling technology pipelines, which is the modern-day equivalent of blocking the highway, you are controlling any in and out flow,” said Ayushi Roy, a former technologist at the General Services Administration who now teaches digital government at the Harvard Kennedy School.
“You have to know where the breaker is and what the right order of switches is to turn the thing back on. I don’t know that they know where all the breakers and the mains are for this house yet, and they are letting go of all the people who do know.”
Musk gave hundreds of millions of dollars to Trump's campaign and attached himself to the president-elect's side after he won in November. He eventually persuaded Trump and his advisers that the key to breaking the bureaucracy was by gaining control of its computers – and White House advisers have been amazed by his enthusiasm and speed, even though two sources say they're annoyed by having to clean up his messes.
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“He is kind of going after the nerve center of government,” said Amanda Ballantyne, director of the Technology Institute at the AFL-CIO. “It looks like he’s using data and IT systems as a backdoor way to gain considerable discretionary power without normal, legal oversight.”
The tech mogul hired former employees and other loyalists to access data sets including the private personal data of taxpayers, government workers, grants and contracts. A former Tesla engineer recently installed as director of Technology Transformation Services at the General Services Administration, appeared to confirm concerns by some tech workers inside the government that Musk planned to impose artificial intelligence tools on the federal machine.
“We want to start implementing more AI at the agency level and be an example for how other agencies can start leveraging AI,” said Musk ally Thomas Shedd in a recording made at an all-hands meeting Feb. 3 that was shared with The Atlantic.
Shedd suggested AI-powered coding assistants and federal contract analysis as examples of what he envisioned, but veteran federal employees saw tremendous risks in centralizing government data in that way, because the systems are hardened against outside attacks — but remain vulnerable to insider threats.
“At present, every hacker in the world knows there are a small number of people new to federal service who hold the keys to access all U.S. government payments, contracts, civil servant personal info and more,” wrote one recently departed federal technology official in draft testimony for lawmakers. “DOGE is one romance scam away from a national security emergency.”