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Tech billionaire Elon Musk’s controversial DOGE is being audited by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), according to a new report.
The GAO — a non-partisan, independent agency that works for Congress — has been investigating Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency since last month, according to sources and records reviewed by Wired.
The audit is specifically targeting DOGE’s access to and use of sensitive government data, Wired reports.
Congressional leaders requested the GAO audit to investigate DOGE after “alarming” media reports of DOGE infiltrating federal systems, a congressional aide told Wired.
“The reports of untrained people rummaging around databases changing code, scraping data — who knows what they’re doing? — were pretty alarming,” the aide said.
Musk and his young DOGE crew have repeatedly been accused of accessing a wide range of personal information that’s supposed to be protected, including information on workers, Social Security numbers and even bank account information.
Social Security numbers can be used in identity theft to open bank accounts and apply for loans and credit cards in the holder’s name that can massively hike debt, especially if a crime syndicate uses a number in different locations before authorities are alerted to the thefts.
“Social Security is literally the keys to the kingdom to everybody,” said Mary Ellen Callahan, former chief privacy officer at the Department of Homeland Security. “It’s absolutely a Privacy Act violation.”
One DOGE worker has been identified by Wired as a 19-year-old high school graduate who was booted from an internship after leaking company information to a rival firm, according to the publication.
A federal judge last month temporarily blocked Musk and his DOGE crew from their “fishing expedition” in a desperate search for their claimed “fraud epidemic” at the Social Security Administration based on “little more than suspicion,” the judge wrote.
U.S. District Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander issued an order preventing the world’s wealthiest man and his team from having “unfettered access” to data from the Social Security program, which Musk has baselessly slammed as a “Ponzi scheme,” and claimed without evidence that tens of millions of dead people are collecting Social Security benefits.
On Thursday, Acting Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service Melanie Knause announced she is quitting over an agreement by the IRS to share information on migrants’ taxes with the Department of Homeland Security.
It’s not clear exactly what DOGE has already accessed, or what the crew has accomplished other than massive firings. “Receipts” listed by DOGE revealing its purported savings are consistently riddled with major errors. Presumably the GAO will determine an accurate accounting of claimed savings, as well as track down any inappropriate access to and possible misuse of data.
It wasn’t immediately clear how extensive the investigation will be. Democrats, however, have been seeking a review of DOGE’s actions within multiple agencies, especially the Social Security Administration and Treasury Department.
GAO spokesperson Sarah Kaczmarek told Wired that the “GAO has received requests to review actions taken by DOGE across multiple agencies.” She provided no other details.
The GAO review is expected to be completed by the end of spring, according to the publication.
Neither Musk nor DOGE representatives could immediately be reached for comment.
