National security expert Marcy Wheeler pointed out that reports of the "resignation" of Elon Musk aide Marko Elez after social media posts were revealed showing he considered himself a white nationalist doesn't mean that's why he actually resigned.
"That belief is only based on correlation, not any proof of causation," Wheeler said of the reporting on Elez.
The implication was that Elez was "resigned" because the far-right ideology was exposed. Musk then led an effort to get Elez rehired, scoring Vice President J.D. Vance's endorsement for it.
It "led a lot of people to believe that Elez had been reinstalled at Treasury. But multiple court filings claim that Elez resigned and never came back, at least not to Treasury," wrote Wheeler.
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In fact, Elez's resignation came the same day that a U.S. District Court judge mandated that Elez only be given "read-only" access to government databases.
"A court filing submitted yesterday reveals, Elez’ resignation happened the same day that Treasury discovered Elez’s Bureau laptop, 'had mistakenly been configured with read/write permissions instead of read-only.' The filing is a declaration from Joseph Gioeli, who has been employed as the 'Deputy Commissioner for Transformation and Modernization in the Bureau of the Fiscal Service' since 2023 and is a civil servant first hired in the first year of Trump’s first term."
The sworn declaration walks through how Elez had high-level access to payment systems. Gioeli said that the team attempted to mitigate risks by giving Elez an official BFS laptop, which would be the only way he could access the systems.
"Mr. Elez’s usage of his BFS laptop at all times and continuously log his activity," Gioeli said in the statement. "Additionally, the Bureau enabled enhanced monitoring on his laptop, which included the ability to monitor and block website access, block the use of external peripherals (such as USB drives or mass storage devices), monitor any scripts or commands executed on the device, and block access to cloud-based storage services."
Ultimately, he was given the source code to make whatever change he wanted, but he could never make it permanent. Six days later, he was given that same full access "to first two and then one more systems," said Wheeler.
Testimony said that the logs of Elez's activity show that he "copied some files from the active database onto his Bureau laptop, on which he had the source code."
According to the testimony, Elez took two USDA files from the database. The investigatory team is still sorting through the logs of what he did.
He then was given access to the payment system directly, all while having source code. Soon after it was discovered he had "read/write access" to the data.
"A forensic investigation was immediately initiated by database administrators to review all activities performed on that server and database," the court filing said.
Silicon Valley CEO Thomas Krause claimed, "I currently have no reason to believe Mr. Elez retains access to any BFS payment data, source code, or systems."
Wheeler wondered if anyone had asked Elez or knew where he was. Krause's statement also said that Elez resigned from "his role," but he may still be working at the Treasury Department.
Most of Musk's team members are being given the "Special Government Employee" categorization, but Elez was an official Treasury Department employee.
Wheeler reiterated that she doesn't think anyone can rule out that he quit because of concerns about his system access, not his social media posts.
