Billionaire Elon Musk outlined a list of “super obvious” changes that his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) plans to make at the U.S. Treasury Department this weekend.
Musk says officials at the treasury are working to make the government’s books more simple to audit, as well as more accountability for where funds are going. The changes also require treasury employees to more frequently update the congressional “do not pay” list, which highlights fraudsters and illegal fronts.
“Nobody in Treasury management cared enough before. I do want to credit the working level people in Treasury who have wanted to do this for many years, but have been stopped by prior management,” Musk said.
“Everything at Treasury was geared towards complain[t] minimization. People [who] receive money don’t complain, but people who don’t receive money (especially fraudsters) complain very loudly, so the fraud was allowed to continue,” he added.
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“The above super obvious and necessary changes are being implemented by existing, long-time career government employees, not anyone from DOGE,” Musk added.
“It is ridiculous that these changes didn’t exist already! Yesterday, I was told that there are currently over $100B/year of entitlements payments to individuals with no SSN or even a temporary ID number,” he continued. “If accurate, this is extremely suspicious. When I asked if anyone at Treasury had a rough guess for what percentage of that number is unequivocal and obvious fraud, the consensus in the room was about half, so $50B/year or $1B/week!! This is utterly insane and must be addressed immediately.”
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Musk’s tirade toward the treasury department comes just after a federal judge blocked DOGE’s ability to access treasury department systems. The Tesla CEO condemned the ruling as “insane” this weekend.
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The Friday lawsuit, which was filed by 19 Democratic attorneys general, claimed Musk’s team violated the law by being given “full access” to the Treasury’s payment systems. The systems include information about Americans’ Social Security, Medicare and veterans’ benefits, tax refund information and more.
The lawsuit was filed in New York by the office of New York Attorney General Letitia James, who wrote that President Donald Trump “does not have the power to give away Americans’ private information to anyone he chooses, and he cannot cut federal payments approved by Congress.”
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has expressed support for Musk and DOGE in the past, recently saying that the U.S. “doesn’t have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem.”
“At the Treasury, our payment system is not being touched,” Bessent said in a “Kudlow” interview on Wednesday. “We process 1.3 billion payments a year. There is a study being done — can we have more accountability, more accuracy, more traceability that the money is going where it is?”
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