Elon Musk said his DOGE team of government efficiency enforcers is "rapidly" shutting down payments to federal contractors

Elon Musk claimed that his “DOGE team” of government efficiency enforcers is shutting down payments to certain federal contractors, raising questions about whether the billionaire has access to sensitive Treasury Department systems.

“The corruption and waste is being rooted out in real-time,” Musk posted on X, stating that officials reporting to his so-called Department of Government Efficiency are “rapidly shutting down” payments to a Lutheran charity.

The Treasury Department has not yet responded to questions regarding the extent of Musk’s access. President Donald Trump tasked the Tesla CEO—who is also his largest campaign donor—with leading an initiative to modernize federal IT systems.

However, Musk appears to be broadening that role to include control over financial transactions across the government. On Saturday, senior security officials at USAID were placed on leave after refusing to grant DOGE staffers access to agency systems, citing a lack of required security clearances.

Musk responded by calling USAID “a criminal organization” that should “die.”

Musk’s Expanding Role in Federal Payments

Musk has set his sights on systems that handle tens of billions of dollars in daily government payments, as well as the officials responsible for overseeing them. His statements come after the departure of David Lebryk, the most senior career official at the Treasury Department, who managed payment systems at the Bureau of the Fiscal Service.

Trump endorsed Musk’s efforts on Sunday night. “Elon’s doing a good job,” Trump told reporters.

“He’s a big cost cutter,” Trump added. “Sometimes we won’t agree with it and we’ll not go where he wants to go, but I think he’s doing a great job. He’s a smart guy, very smart, and he’s very much into cutting the budget of our federal government.”

Concerns Over Musk’s Access to Treasury Systems

Senator Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said Friday that he was informed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had granted DOGE full access to Treasury’s payment systems.

“Social Security and Medicare benefits, grants, payments to government contractors, including those that compete directly with Musk’s own companies,” Wyden wrote on BlueSky, a social media platform competing with Musk’s X. “All of it.”

Treasury officials have historically maintained that their role is strictly to process payments authorized by individual agencies based on congressional appropriations, not to determine which payments are approved or denied.

Musk, however, suggested that longstanding oversight practices were inadequate.

“The @DOGE team discovered, among other things, that payment approval officers at Treasury were instructed always to approve payments, even to known fraudulent or terrorist groups. They literally never denied a payment in their entire career. Not even once,” Musk wrote on X, without providing evidence.

Treasury has long had a Do-Not-Pay system in place designed to prevent such transactions.