Bessent Gives Musk Access To Social Security Payments

The New York Times reports:

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent gave representatives of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency full access to the federal payment system late on Friday. Mr. Bessent granted access to the payments system to a handful of staff members affiliated with DOGE, including Tom Krause, the chief executive of a Silicon Valley company, Cloud Software Group.

Access to the system has historically been closely held because it includes sensitive personal information about the millions of Americans who receive Social Security checks, tax refunds and other payments from the federal government.

In a process typically run by civil servants, the Treasury Department carries out payments submitted by agencies across the government, disbursing more than $5 trillion in fiscal year 2023. Former officials said the onus was on individual agencies to ensure their payments are proper, not the relatively small staff at the Treasury Department, which is responsible for making more than one billion payments per year.

Read the full article.

All your personal information is now in the hands of a second-tier private company CEO who hasn’t been senate confirmed, isn’t following any ethics rules, etc etc pic.twitter.com/oCWLL37AR7

— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) February 1, 2025