Evidence suggests Elon Musk and his youthful "corps of engineers" have broken into U.S. Treasury system without background checks and security clearances

Elon's "little boys" (Mint)

 

Members of Elon Musk's "youth corps of engineers" have been rewriting U.S. Treasury Department code, which could block payments and reduce visibility into what has been blocked, according to a report at The New Republic (TNR). One expert says they have created a "backdoor into the U.S. Treasury," creating security vulnerabilities that could be "incredibly dangerous.  Under the headline "The Real Threat of Elon Musk’s Treasury Takeover Exposed; Musk’s team is rewriting code in the U.S. Treasury system, "Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling writes:

Elon Musk’s team of coders are creating a “backdoor” into the U.S. Treasury system, according to legal and I.T. professionals.

“Pushing live production code cooked up by some young coders over a week of [sleepless] nights in place of a legacy system that is fundamental to the operation of the US government is against every programming best practice,” University of Kansas law professor Corey Rayburn Yung posted on BlueSky.

Highlighting a Talking Points Memo piece about how Musk’s team is implementing untested code into the U.S. Treasury to create new paths that “block payments and possibly leave less visibility into what has been blocked,” Yung warned that the world’s richest man was creating a “backdoor into the US Treasury.”

“This is incredibly dangerous both because of its intended use (by Elon and Trump) and the risk of other actors exploiting a major security vulnerability to cause a massive disruption to the US government,” Yung continued.

“There’s clearly no QA process, live testing with mocks, technical support for bugs, etc.,” Yung said. “This is insane. It’s the coding equivalent of hammering a complex, fragile machine until it does what you want.”

In a separate piece, TNR reports it is not clear if Musk, and his youthful helpers, have passed background checks or received security clearances. Houghtaling reports:

Musk was appointed as a “special government employee” by the White House, but on Monday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt couldn’t explain whether he had received security clearance or a background check to operate within the federal government.

A special government employee is “anyone who works, or is expected to work, for the government for 130 days or less in a 365-day period,” according to the Justice Department.

To help him, Musk has tapped a group of college students between the ages of 18 and 25, several of whom have little other professional experience than interning for him at SpaceX or Neuralink.

It is not clear if the college students have received proper background checks or security clearances. Are they essentially "breaking and entering" into a government system? That's what it sounds like. Houghtaling writes:

Musk and his staffers at the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, have had seemingly unfettered access to federal databases containing Social Security numbers, home addresses, medical histories, and other sensitive data.

Last week, Musk’s team was spotted installing a commercial email server into the Office of Personnel Management, in what many considered to be a massive security risk. The server gave the uncleared team potential access to onboarding, job performance reviews, and government employee health care details, which could violate HIPAA laws.

U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and economic-policy expert Lindsay Owens have compared the Musk team's actions to a "coup." 

Mint.com provides background on Musk's youth corps. The Daily Beast also has background.