Unpacking claims that Elon Musk and his DOGE team secured access to Treasury payment systems

As protests mounted against Elon Musk and his team at the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency, Federal Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, of the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia, issued a temporary restraining order in a lawsuit brought by a coalition of labor unions to protect the privacy of millions of people who have had transactions with the federal government. The order maintained "read only" access to two people linked to DOGE, Tom Krause and Marko Elez. However, a Feb. 6, 2025, Wall Street Journal article said Elez had resigned from his post after WSJ contacted him to ask about racist posts. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt had confirmed his resignation. Further, according to a Wired report later that day, Elez had had his administrative access to the payment systems rescinded on Feb. 5, the day before the restraining order. Lastly, on Feb. 6, 13 states announced they would sue the U.S. Department of Treasury to bar DOGE from accessing the payment systems, according a joint statement. The following report reflects conditions as of the afternoon of Feb. 4, 2025.

Within two weeks of U.S. President Donald Trump taking office for a second time in 2025, rumors began circulating that Elon Musk, owner of the social media platform X and head of the new Department of Government Efficiency, had taken hold of the Department of Treasury's payment system that controls $6 trillion in spending.

One X user, whose post (archived) had amassed more than 1.8 million views as of this writing, wrote: "A foreign-born-billionaire not a single American citizen voted for now has access to our Treasury Department payment system. $6 TRILLION is now in the hands of Elon Musk and his unelected minions. If something happens to that money it's game over USA. No. One. Voted. For. This. No one."

The claim also appeared on TikTok (archived), Reddit and Facebook (archived). Historian Heather Cox Richardson's Feb. 2 Facebook post, which had amassed more than 117,000 shares as of this writing, read in part:

Billionaire Elon Musk's team yesterday took control of the Treasury's payment system, thus essentially gaining access to the checkbook with which the United States handles about $6 trillion annually and to all the financial information of Americans and American businesses with it. 

Meanwhile, dozens of Snopes readers asked about the rumor via email, either sharing the claim or asking whether it was true. Some were concerned that the system at the Treasury included the private information of U.S. citizens and residents, including "Social Security numbers and any transaction we have had with the government." Others added that this gave Musk unique control over what the government spends, including on Medicare, Social Security benefits and tax refunds.

Snopes' findings are based on reports by reputable news media outlets including The New York Times, The Associated Press (AP), Wired and Politico. However, all of these outlets' articles quoted anonymous sources. Therefore, we have not been able to independently verify the information provided by those sources. Anyone we have contacted has yet to respond; however, we will update this article if they do.

What do news media reports say?

The rumors stemmed from a series of reports published by reputable news media outlets.

For example, on Feb. 1, 2025, the NYT reported that newly sworn-in Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had given Musk and his DOGE team access to the highly sensitive system that doled out $5.45 trillion in 2024, according to the website of the Treasury. The report was based on anonymous sources.

Access to this system allows a person to control how the government spends its money. As Snopes readers said, this system is a trove of confidential information as it includes personal data of people in the U.S., citizens and legal residents alike, who receive Social Security benefits and tax refunds. It also distributes wages for employees across the federal government. Historically, few people had access to the system for this reason. 

On the same day, the AP independently reported the story upon which the claim is based, citing two anonymous sources.

This came after the publication of a separate NYT article about a career civil servant at the Treasury, David Lebryk, who reportedly previously denied Musk and DOGE access to this system. On Jan. 31, 2025, the newspaper reported Lebryk had resigned after 35 years in service. 

On Feb. 2, technology magazine Wired published a story that identified several members of Musk's team at DOGE. The story included their ages, which ranged from 19 to 24. All of them appeared to be engineers and one was a volunteer, Wired quoted anonymous sources as saying. The report mentioned that the group had obtained control over the systems of other parts of the government, including the Office of Personnel Management, the General Services Administration and the U.S. Agency for International Development. Snopes was not able to independently verify whether these six individuals had been given access to the systems.

Also on Feb. 1, political digital newspaper Politico published an article quoting anonymous sources who said that while Musk's team had access to the payment system, their access was "read-only," suggesting they did not, in fact, have the ability to make any changes to it. On Feb. 3, 2025, The NYT ran another report saying White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt had confirmed this detail: "Ms. Leavitt said the access they were granted so far was 'read only,' meaning the staff members could not alter payments."

But on Feb. 3, Wired published a new report contradicting Politico and the NYT. Wired said Marko Elez, a 25-year-old engineer formerly employed at X and a recent graduate from Rutgers University, did in fact have administrative and "direct" access to "Treasury Department systems responsible for nearly all payments made by the US government." Administrative access allows a user to make critical changes to a system. This report quoted three anonymous sources, some or all of whom reportedly said Elez had visited the Bureau of Fiscal Services in Kansas City, which houses the Payment Automation Manager and the Secure Payment System. 

On Feb. 4, Josh Marshall, editor-in-chief of news and opinion website Talking Points Memo, posted a thread (archived) on Bluesky in which he said he had independently confirmed that Elez had indeed received administrative access to the systems. He added that his reporting also revealed that Elez had started making changes to the system (emphasis ours):

I can confirm the key details of this report based on my own reporting -the name of the DOGE operative and that yes the reports about read only access is categorically false. Not only does Marko have full privileges in this system but has indeed begun rewriting the code base of this critical system, significantly rewriting the software for this critical system. 

(Bluesky / ‪@joshtpm.bsky.social‬)

Referring to a thread he posted the night before (archived), in which he had used a pseudonym for Elez because he had not finished reporting the story, Marshall "discussed the extreme anxiety of Treasury programmers who have been compelled to assist Marco about the changes that he is making to the code base." 

Meanwhile, two of Musk's posts on X suggested that his team had at least seen some information related to Treasury payments. In a Feb. 1 post (archived), he said DOGE became aware "that payment approval officers at Treasury were instructed always to approve payments, even to known fraudulent or terrorist groups." In another post (archived) the next day, Musk said: "Career Treasury officials are breaking the law every hour of every day by approving payments that are fraudulent or do not match the funding laws passed by Congress."

(X user @elonmusk)

Democrats' reactions

Several Democrats in Congress have reacted to DOGE's reported takeover of systems in U.S. government agencies. For example, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland addressed Musk directly on Feb. 3, 2025, at a news conference.

Raskin said in part (see the full transcript here):

Elon Musk, you may have illegally seized power over the financial payment systems of the United States Department of Treasury, but you don't control the money of the American people. The United States Congress does that — under Article I of the Constitution.

And just like the president, who was elected to something, cannot impound the money of the people, we don't have a fourth branch of government called Elon Musk. And that's going to become real clear. 

This illegal, unconstitutional interference with congressional power is threatening lives all over the world. 

Meanwhile, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts posted a video of herself condemning Musk's and DOGE's actions on X.

She said: "Elon just grabbed the controls of our whole payment system, demanding the power to turn it on for his friends or turn it off for anyone he doesn't like."

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York also took to X to say (archived) that Musk's actions represented a "five-alarm fire".

As of this writing, Snopes has not been able to independently confirm the information in the above news media reports. We contacted the Treasury, the BFS and DOGE as well as three of the men mentioned in the Wired reports, including Elez. We will update this article if we receive any responses.