The Friday cover of Time Magazine shows Elon Musk behind the determined desk in the Oval Office of the White House, a seat that is usually reserved for the president, and imply that the richest man in the world in Washington has greater power than even president Donald Trump.
Musk, who spent 288 million US dollars in the United States In order to choose Trump, a level of access to the federal payment system of the US government was granted, which is unprecedented for a private person, and his actions have already triggered protests and complaints.
Musk has used its access to the system, which is responsible for the flow of over 6 trillion dollars to American families and companies every year in order to largely dismantle the US Agency for International Development (USA), the Foreign Aid Agency State to disturb agencies and organizations in the federal government.
A federal judge said on Friday that he would temporarily prevent the Trump administration from placing 2,200 USAID employees on a paid vacation, but he with employees who argued that the president lacks the authority, the six decades-old aid organization, which in the congress legislation is anchored to reduce quickly.
Musks Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), which seems to contain a team of a dozen young men who were previously unknown to the U. are not safe.
Musk’s own companies, which include SpaceX and Tesla, have received US government contracts worth billions of US dollars, which gives further concerns about potential conflicts of interest.
Here are some of the questions about the latest actions by DOGES.
Privacy and security
After an investigation by the Treasury Department, democratic legislators are looking for the ACCESS Musk team, which has been transferred to the government’s payment system, referring to “threats to the economy and national security as well as the potential violation of laws to protect privacy and tax data American”.
The payment system takes over tax returns, social security benefits and much more and raises questions about whether the Doge check is legal. Any breakdown of the system could mean missed payments to people or even the common use of sensitive personal data.
Nineteen Democratic lawyers, General Attorney, sued Trump on Friday to prevent Doge from accessing the records of the department for the financial department, which contain sensitive personal data. The case submitted before the Federal Supreme Court in New York City claims that the Trump administration Musk’s team has allowed access to the department of the department in violation of the federal law.
The finance department claimed that it only evaluates the integrity of the system in its review and that there are no changes to it.
Confidentiality
In a letter to the incumbent education secretary, a group of Democrats asked for details about the work and swore to combat any attempt to close the educational department that was in turmoil when Trump sets off.
Dozens of employees were put on a paid vacation with little explanation, and Doge’s workers have started to search the department’s records in order to collect the expenses.
The Doge team has already received access to a database that houses personal data about millions of students and parents with federal loans with federal actors, so two people with knowledge of the problem. A third person said that Doge would have access to the department’s website on Friday, so that Musk’s employees would change the text on any page or make the website offline.
Not chosen, but authorized by the US President Donald Trump to shorten state waste, the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, stands in a growing resistance to his disguise of federal jobs and departments in what a democratic senator described as a “illegal power class” .
In a federal action submitted on Friday, the access from Doge to Financial Aid Systems by students is blocked and it describes it as “enormous and unprecedented” invasion of privacy, which violates the data protection rights of millions of borrowers of the federal loan. It was submitted by the student defense of the Advocacy Group on behalf of the Student Association of the University of California.
It is said that Doge could now have access to social security numbers, driver’s license numbers, birth data and contact information for borrowers from student loans.
The educational department said that Doge helps him to return to personal work, to restore the accountability for employees and to reform the attitude process in order to concentrate on merit. It is said that there is “nothing inappropriate or shameful in advance”.
Conflict of interest
A group of unions sued the workers of Dogy from the US Ministry of Labor systems that say that sensitive information about employees are included, including those who have submitted security complaints through their employers.
The Ministry of Labor also has information about investigations into SpaceX and Tesla as well as about the business secrets of competitors, the unions said in their complaint. The department is home to the professional security and health administration, which SpaceX and Tesla examined in connection with the security of the workers and confirmed with a fine, the unions said in court documents.
On Friday, a federal judge considered whether the Musk team blocked access to systems in the labor department, even though the hearing ended without a decision.
“With every step,” wrote the trade union lawyers represented by the Advocacy Group Democracy Forward, “dampen Doge against several laws, from constitutional limits of the executive power, to laws that protect civil servants from arbitrary threats and negative measures, right down to crucial protection Collected for government data and stored on hundreds of millions of Americans.
The Ministry of Justice said that the unions just speculate and have not shown that Doge employees would have access to the information that they would worry about.
Questions about employees
Gavin Kliger lists his work at LinkedIn as the “special consultant of the director” in the Office of Personal Management, which has cited the efforts of Musk to reduce the federal employee.
In social media contributions between October 2024 and January, the Berkeley-trained computer scientist expressed controversial views and published content of the white supremacist Nick Fuentes and the self-described women’s enemy, Andrew Tate.
Kliger is one of about a dozen men identified by Reuters and other news agencies, which were discontinued by Musk and his Doge office.
Senator Elizabeth Warren and other democratic legislators spoke at a rally outside the US Ministry of Finance on February 4, 2025 after the Tech billionaire Elon Musk granted access to his payment system and sensitive government databases.
Another employee of Doge, Marko Elez, announced on Thursday in the middle of questions from Wall Street Journal via links to a deleted social media account that campaigned for racism and eugenics.
Musk said on Friday that he would spend Elez again.
Reuters could not find out how Elez, Kliger or one of the people who worked with musk to reduce the government and the staff were selected for their work.
An official of the White House announced Reuters on Wednesday that Musk and its engineers have appropriate security checks and in “complete compliance with the federal law, reasonable security checks and as employees of the responsible agencies, not operating as external consultants or companies”.
