U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) is seeking answers from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent following a report that personnel associated with Elon Musk sought access to a Treasury Department payment system.
The system disperses trillions of dollars each year, such as Social Security and Medicare benefits, tax credits for individuals and businesses, grants and payments to government contractors, including those that compete directly with Musk-owned companies.
Wyden, ranking member on the Senate Finance Committee, added that the system is maintained by non-political staff.
“To put it bluntly, these payment systems simply cannot fail, and any politically motivated meddling in them risks severe damage to our country and the economy. I am deeply concerned that following the federal grant and loan freeze earlier this week, these officials associated with Musk may have intended to access these payment systems to illegally withhold payments to any number of programs. I can think of no good reason why political operators who have demonstrated a blatant disregard for the law would need access to these sensitive, mission-critical systems,” Wyden wrote in a letter to Bessent.
Wyden added that he is concerned that mismanagement of these payment systems could threaten the full faith and credit of the United States.
“The press has previously reported that Musk was denied a high-level clearance to access the government’s most sensitive secrets. I am concerned that Musk’s enormous business operation in China — a country whose intelligence agencies have stolen vast amounts of sensitive data about Americans, including U.S. government employee data by hacking U.S. government systems — endangers U.S. cybersecurity and creates conflicts of interest that make his access to these systems a national security risk,” Wyden continued in the letter.
Wyden posed several questions to Bessent that he requested responses to by Feb. 12. Among the questions, Wyden asked if and which officials associated with Elon Musk or DOGE requested access to the Bureau of the Fiscal Service’s payment systems; for an explanation of the legal authority under which the Treasury Department granted access to any of the Fiscal Service’s payment systems to officials associated with Elon Musk or DOGE; for a detailed description of why the Treasury Department gave officials associated with Elon Musk or DOGE and the intended changes to the system that merits such access; and if the Treasury Department has given access to payment system databases related to the disbursement of Social Security and Medicare benefits.