Reports say Musk's aides have taken control of a crucial federal payment system

Musk is in charge of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, which is a “temporary organization” President Donald Trump created via executive order rather than an official department.
Within the organization, a coterie of young aides with no government background have glommed onto a number of key choke points in the federal government, including the Office of Personnel Management, the General Services Administration and the Treasury Department. The offices, respectively, are responsible for the federal government’s workforce, its real estate, and its payment of a wide variety of funds, including Social Security benefits and tax returns.

The career civil servant who oversaw the Treasury Department’s sensitive payment system recently retired after being put on administrative leave; he had unsuccessfully tried to resist DOGE’s efforts to gain access. Musk aides have since gained access to the system, but White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt insisted to The New York Times it was “read only” — meaning they couldn’t actually make any changes to the system or to outgoing payments.

But two new reports say otherwise.