Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency have launched an all-out blitz on the Deep State and Swamp, with recent reports revealing they have access to the federal government’s payment system, which they are using to track where money is going and why, a major opportunity for cuts.
Part of that taking of a buzz saw to the government fat and overspending involves the Department of the Treasury and its payments; in the wake of Elon’s DOGE staffers gaining access to the payment system, Elon called out Treasury staffers allowing fraudulent payments and payments to terrorist groups.
Such is what the tech billionaire posted about on Saturday, February 1, as his staffers got deep into the details of the payments the Treasury is making. Namely, he noted that though every payment has to be approved, they are never denied by those who are supposed to be watching them, and so all manner of obscene payments happen.
Making that point, Elon wrote, in a post on X, “The @DOGE team discovered, among other things, that payment approval officers at Treasury were instructed always to approve payments, even to known fraudulent or terrorist groups. They literally never denied a payment in their entire career. Not even once.”
That came in response to a post from Robby Starbuck, who said, “The highest ranking Treasury official, David A Lebryk, is resigning rather than complying with a request by @DOGE for access to audit where they’ve spent trillions of dollars a year. Why would career bureaucrats fear an audit by @elonmusk and @doge to see where we can save money?”
Adding some more context to the situation, a commenter on the post from Starbuck noted the vast amount of money that is pushed through the Treasury payment platform, saying, “$6 trillion runs through that computerized payment platform. They’re scared to death that anyone with any expertise will examine what is going on.”
That came alongside Senate Finance Committee ranking Democrat Sen. Ron Wyden posting on Bluesky, the leftist X alternative, that Elon had full access to the Treasury system, through which he could see everything the government is paying for. He said, “Sources tell my office that Treasury Secretary Bessent has granted DOGE *full* access to this system. Social Security and Medicare benefits, grants, payments to government contractors, including those that compete directly with Musk’s own companies. All of it.”
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Musk also joked on Saturday, February 1 that being able to work on the weekends is a “superpower” when fighting the federal bureaucracy, as nearly all of its employees are far too lazy to show up to do something on the weekend, giving his much more motivated DOGE staffers an edge in fighting them.
He said, posting about that on X, “Very few in the bureaucracy actually work the weekend, so it’s like the opposing team just leaves the field for 2 days! Working the weekend is a superpower 😂” That came in response to a post from Mario Nawfal, who said, “DOGE is speedrunning government reform—$4B/day cuts could start THIS weekend. Bureaucracy never saw it coming.”
Watch Trump comment on Elon’s cost-cutting here: