1. United States
2. Wisc.
3. Letter

Stop Elon musk and his counterparts from taking over the government and breaching cyber security. Billionaire Elon Musk’s team took control of the Treasury’s payment system, thus essentially gaining access to the checkbook with which the United States handles about $6 trillion annually and to all the financial information of Americans and American businesses with it. Ellen Knickmeyer of the Associated Press reported that yesterday two top security officials from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) tried to stop people associated with Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, from accessing classified information they did not have security clearance to see. The Trump administration put the officials on leave, and the DOGE team gained access to the information. This feels like a hostile takeover of the machinery of governments by the richest man in the world. After Musk’s team breached the USAID computers, cybersecurity specialist Matthew Garrett posted: “Random computers being plugged into federal networks is obviously terrifying in terms of what data they're deliberately accessing, but it's also terrifying because it implies controls are being disabled—unmanaged systems should never have access to this data. Who else has access to those systems?” USAID receives foreign policy guidance from the State Department. Intelligence agencies must now assume U.S. intelligence systems are insecure. Musk’s response was to post: “USAID is a criminal organization. Time for it to die.” Also last night, according to Sam Stein of The Bulwark, “the majority of staff in the legislative and public affairs bureau lost access to their emails, implying they’ve been put on admin leave although this was never communicated to them.” **Musk is unelected, and it appears that DOGE has no legal authority. ** As political scientist Seth Masket put it in tusk: “Elon Musk is not a federal employee, nor has he been appointed by the President nor approved by the Senate to have any leadership role in government. The ‘Department of Government Efficiency,’ announced by Trump in a January 20th executive order, is not truly any sort of government department or agency, and even the executive order uses quotes in the title. …but DOGE does not have power over established government agencies, and **Musk has no role in government. ** Musk is a private citizen taking control of established government offices. That is not efficiency; that is a coup.” DOGE has simply taken over government systems. Musk, using President Donald Trump’s name, is personally deciding what he thinks should be cut from the U.S. government. In fact, this is money appropriated by Congress, and its **payment is required by law.** The news that DOGE has taken over U.S. government computers is an absolute threat to national security.