Billionaire weirdo Elon Musk and his band of techies have likely accessed your most private information and have their disreputable mitts on the faucet from which vital government payments flow.
If you rely on Social Security or Medicare or Medicaid, it’s time to panic. If you care about your personal data – like your Social Security number or banking information – it’s also time to panic.Thanks to President Donald Trump and the permissive Republican Party, billionaire weirdo Elon Musk and his band of random techies have likely accessed your most private information and have their disreputable mitts on the faucet from which vital government payments flow
I’m guessing you didn’t vote for Musk to be given free rein over computer systems throughout the federal government that are normally handled by highly trained people who’ve cleared thorough background checks. Well, tough luck. Trump’s in charges and things like “rules” and “norms” and “laws” are for losers.Musk has access to ‘vast amounts of privileged and restricted’ informationMusk, under the guise of what is essentially a fabricated government agency – the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE – has brought in people we know nothing about to do things we know nothing about with zero permission from or oversight by Congress
Colbert King of The Washington Post described Musk and Co.’s hijacking of federal systems like this: “Musk and his hirelings are gaining access to vast amounts of privileged and restricted government information on a scale unseen in our nation’s capital. The Treasury Department, where I once worked, has given DOGE license to scrutinize federal payment systems that annually disburse trillions of dollars in government expenditures. The systems also contain a trove of sensitive information about hundreds of millions of Americans ‒ information that private commercial interests and foreign governments would pay dearly to get their hands on.
Opinion:Billionaire Musk bought control of US government and conspiracy theorists sure are quietMax Richtman, head of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, wrote in a statement: “Social Security beneficiaries and their families have every reason to be alarmed by Elon Musk’s takeover of the U.S. Department of Treasury’s payment system, which is responsible for paying Social Security benefits. The unelected billionaire, who has no legal role in the U.S. government but heads Trump’s unofficial Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), and his newly-installed minions in the Treasury Department, now have access to the personal information of every Social Security beneficiary ‒ and the ability to stop payments for any federal programs they dislike.
Musk’s intrusion into individuals’ privacy ‘is massive and unprecedented’Consider this, from a lawsuit filed by the Alliance for Retired Americans against new U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, seeking to block Musk and his goons from accessing sensitive record: “The scale of the intrusion into individuals’ privacy is massive and unprecedented. 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. Secretary Bessent’s action granting DOGE-affiliated individuals full, continuous, and ongoing access to that information for an unspecified period of time means that retirees, taxpayers, federal employees, companies, and other individuals from all walks of life have no assurance that their information will receive the protection that federal law affords.
