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A young engineer who worked at Elon Musk’s social media giant X and aerospace companies is believed to have direct access to Treasury Department systems responsible for nearly all payments made by the U.S. government, a new report says.
Marko Elez, 25, of the Department of Government Efficiency – an advisory body headed by Musk tasked with cutting programs and slashing federal spending – can both read and write code on two payment systems that process trillion dollars every year, two sources told Wired.
The system is said to include the Payment Automation Manager and Secure Payment System of the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, a nonpartisan arm of the Treasury Department that manages federal payments including Social Security benefits and federal tax returns.
Run by non-political staff, the system is also responsible for paying out tax credits for individuals and businesses, and, crucially, grants and payments to government contractors. Some of those include organizations that compete with Musk’s companies.
The BFS disbursed almost 88 percent of all federal payments through the 2023 fiscal year, according to figures on its website.
DOGE was believed to only have access to the systems on a “read-only” level, though the specifics remained murky. However, three sources say Elez, who allegedly visited a Kansas City office housing the two payment systems, has been granted administrator-level privileges.
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Critics have grown concerned that DOGE’s control of those mechanisms grants leeway to obstruct the flow of money to specific federal agencies or individuals.
“You could do anything with these privileges,” one source said, with Elez’s alleged level of access typically allowing for the navigation of the entire file system, changing user permissions and deleting or modifying important files.
A federal IT worker told Wired that they “don’t see why” a DOGE employee should need access to the highly sensitive systems.
“If you would have asked me a week ago, I’d have told you that this kind of thing would never in a million years happen. But now, who the f**k knows,” they added.
According to Elez’s social media profiles – including his now-removed LinkedIn and a Twitter page reviewed by The Independent – he graduated from New Jersey’s Rutgers University in 2021 and subsequently worked at SpaceX as a software engineer. Musk’s tech prodigy then joined X where he worked on search AI.
He is not believed to have previous government experience.
Four posts from Musk, Donald Trump and DOGE were retweeted to an X profile that appears to belong to Elez, a New Jersey native and teen soccer star. It also said that he is based in New York City.
Later on Tuesday morning, Elez appeared to have unfollowed Trump, removed his profile picture, his location, all posts and information from his account.
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The Treasury division accessed by DOGE handles payments of nearly $6 trillion of government finances.
And, on Friday, incoming Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent granted access to the payment systems, according to the Washington Post. Musk has allegedly placed young surrogates in DOGE aged between 19 and 24 years old in key positions across government.
The New York Times reports, DOGE officials had been asking since after the 2024 election for access to the system, according to the sources.
It marked the day when a longtime Treasury official and Trump’s Acting Secretary of the Treasury, David Lebryk was placed on administrative leave – before eventually resigning – after a clash with Musk allies.
Lebryk, the top-ranking career official in the agency, clashed with the billionaire’s surrogate over access to sensitive payment systems used by the government.
On Monday, advocacy groups filed a lawsuit against the Treasury Department, calling the “massive and unprecedented” sharing of data sharing illegal.
The Independent has contacted the White House, the Treasury Department and DOGE for more information.
