Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency continues to tear through the federal government like a virus. DOGE has moved from one bureaucratic organ to the next, stopping at each juncture to fire people, seize data, and generally cause mayhem and distress. Now, as various legal challenges begin to pile up, Musk’s pro-corporate, anti-government organization is turning to two agencies that directly impact millions of Americans: the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Social Security Administration.
On Thursday, an anonymous source communicated to Semafor that DOGE would soon be training its sights on the Social Security Administration. At least one DOGE staffer is preparing to “work with the agency,” the outlet reported. While there’s little information available as to what Musk’s group plans to do to America’s popular public benefits program, DOGE’s whole modus operandi has been to take a butcher’s knife to the agencies it “works” with, so it’s difficult to imagine that the changes will be helpful to the average American.
“It’s going to depend on what we find,” an anonymous source with knowledge of DOGE’s plans told Semafor. “There’s going to be reworks across the government, every agency.” Another person interviewed by the outlet said, of DOGE’s general strategy towards the government: “I think there’s an impulse to clean house, and to maybe freeze funding now. And then, if something’s really important, it will distinguish itself, and we’ll bring it back online … You’ve got to just move fast, integrate fast, and then fix it as you go.”
This week, DOGE also landed at the CFPB, which protects consumers against scams and financial malfeasance. In a press release, the agency’s union announced DOGE’s arrival, describing Musk as a “professional Twitter poster and Jeffrey Epstein confidant” and identifying the DOGE members who had stormed its offices as “Chris Young, a lobbyist for Big Pharma and past field organizer for former Gov. Bobby Jindal, and Elon fanboys Nikhil Rajpal and Gavin Kliger.” It says that Rajpal “led a libertarian students group at public land-grant university UC Berkeley, and worked at auto-lender Tesla and wannabe-payment-processor Twitter.” Of Kliger, the release notes that his “lawyer daddy works at Experian which is the same company CFPB sued in January for covering up errors on credit reports with sham investigations.”
The press release continues: “The unelected Musk recently announced plans for a new payments platform run jointly by Visa and “X” (formerly Twitter). Now, he’s moved his power grab to the CFPB, in a clear attempt to attack union workers and defang the only agency that checks the greed of payment providers, as well as auto lenders like Tesla.”
CNN also reported on Thursday that one of DOGE’s minions—a “23-year-old former SpaceX intern”—had shown up at the Department of Energy, where—against the advice of the agency’s general counsel—he was given access to the department’s IT systems. God only knows who thought that was a good idea.
DOGE is now weathering multiple lawsuits and, on Thursday, it was announced that attorneys general for over a dozen states were readying a collective litigation effort against the organization over its access to U.S. Treasury data. An announcement related to the suit notes that DOGE “staffers’ access to payment systems containing Americans’ private information, bank account information and other sensitive data” is “unlawful.” The states involved—including New York, California, Nevada, Arizona, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, and others—say they want to “ensure those responsible are held accountable.”
“As the richest man in the world, Elon Musk is not used to being told ‘no,’ but in our country, no one is above the law,” the statement reads. “This level of access for unauthorized individuals is unlawful, unprecedented and unacceptable.”