Sensitive veterans data, including information about Department of Veterans Affairs benefits, are among the Treasury Department records Elon Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency now has access to amid his quest to unilaterally cut government spending and personnel. Over the weekend, Musk and his team gained access to the system that the Treasury Department uses to make all U. The system includes taxpayer data, such as Social Security numbers, for nearly every American, which naturally includes scores of veterans.
On top of that, information about VA disability and retirement benefits, Medicare and Medicaid payments and any other government benefits veterans might receive would be swept up in the system. The top Democrat on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee also sounded the alarm Monday specifically about the risk to veterans.
Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn. The Treasury Department did not respond to Military. Musk, the world's richest man whose companies SpaceX and Tesla have earned billions of dollars from government contracts, was appointed by Trump to lead what was dubbed the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, to take a sledgehammer to government spending.
Despite the name, DOGE is not actually a federal department. Rather, Trump signed an executive order on his first day in office that rebranded an existing White House office that was called the U.
DOGE, which Wired reported is staffed by to year-olds with previous connections to Musk's companies, sought and gained access to the Treasury system after the White House's effort to freeze wide swaths of government funding was blocked by court orders and elicited widespread public panic and outrage.
