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Elon Musk responded to a federal judge’s order temporarily blocking the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) access to sensitive Treasury Department data with a blitz of X posts alleging shocking levels of potential fraud.
The preliminary injunction issued Saturday by U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer backed 19 Democratic state attorneys general who claimed that giving DOGE “full access” to the Treasury’s payment systems violates the law.
Engelmayer scheduled a Feb. 20 hearing, until which time DOGE will have diminished access to Treasury data that includes Americans’ Social Security, Medicare, veterans benefits and tax refund information.
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But Musk said DOGE had already found major problems with the way the Treasury Department was paying America’s bills before Engelmayer’s injunction.
“[Friday], I was told that there are currently over $100B/year of entitlements payments to individuals with no SSN or even a temporary ID number. If accurate, this is extremely suspicious,” Musk wrote hours after the ruling.
“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.”
SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk speaks during an America PAC town hall Oct. 26, 2024, in Lancaster, Pa. (Samuel Corum/Getty Images / Getty Images)
The X, Tesla and SpaceX owner and Trump confidante also implied that previous Treasury officials blocked their employees from investigating waste.
“Nobody in Treasury management cared enough before,” Musk wrote. “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.”
One of the goals agreed upon by DOGE and the Treasury Department, Musk said, is to “require that all outgoing government payments have a payment categorization code, which is necessary in order to pass financial audits.”
“This is frequently left blank, making audits almost impossible,” he added.
Musk also stressed that all Treasury payments “must also include a rationale for the payment in the comment field, which is currently left blank.”
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The U.S. Treasury Building in Washington, D.C. (Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images / Getty Images)
“Importantly, we are not yet applying ANY judgment to this rationale, but simply requiring that SOME attempt be made to explain the payment more than NOTHING!” Musk wrote. “The DO-NOT-PAY list of entities known to be fraudulent or people who are dead or are probable fronts for terrorist organizations or do not match Congressional appropriations must actually be implemented and not ignored.
“Also, it can currently take up to a year to get on this list, which is far too long. This list should be updated at least weekly, if not daily,” the entrepreneur added. “The above super obvious and necessary changes are being implemented by existing, long-time career government employees, not anyone from @DOGE.”
Elon Musk on Capitol Hill Dec. 5, 2024, in Washington, D.C. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images / Getty Images)
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Musk added that it was “ridiculous that these changes didn’t exist already” and revealed he was recently told of massive waste in entitlement payments, to the tune of $1 billion per week.
“Everything at Treasury was geared towards complain[t] minimization,” he added. “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.”
