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A judge ruled Saturday that the activities of Elon Musk’s government cost-cutting effort risk “the disclosure of sensitive and confidential information” and render them “more vulnerable than before to hacking.”
David E. Sanger has covered six presidencies and wrote a book about the growing role of cyberattacks in the competition among superpowers.
- Feb. 8, 2025Updated 7:42 p.m. ET
A federal judge’s order that Elon Musk’s team temporarily cease boring into the Treasury Department’s payment systems raises a far larger question: whether what Elon Musk has labeled the Department of Government Efficiency is creating a major cyber and national security vulnerability.
The activities of Mr. Musk’s government cost-cutting effort, U.S. District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer said in his order on Saturday, risk “the disclosure of sensitive and confidential information” and render the Treasury’s systems “more vulnerable than before to hacking.”
It is a risk that cybersecurity experts have been sounding alarms over in the past 10 days, as Mr. Musk’s band of young coders demanded access to the Treasury’s innermost systems. That access was ultimately granted by Scott Bessent, the newly confirmed Treasury secretary.
But other than vague assurances that the new arrivals at the Treasury’s door had proper clearances, there was no description of how their work would be secured — and plenty of reason to believe that it would make it easier for Chinese and Russian intelligence services to target the Treasury’s systems.
That was the central argument made by 19 attorneys general as they sought a temporary restraining order to get Mr. Musk’s workers out of the Treasury systems. And Judge Engelmayer endorsed it on Saturday, limiting access to existing Treasury officials until a hearing next week in front of a different federal judge.
The government has maintained that Mr. Musk’s team has been limited to reviewing “read-only” data in the Treasury Department’s systems, though the administration is now placing appointees in positions where they could do much more.
