U.S. Senator Tina Smith Calls for Congressional hearings on Elon Musk’s infiltration of federal agencies

On Feb. 5, 2025, U.S. Senator Tina Smith (D-MN), a member of the Senate Finance Committee and the Senate Banking Committee, called for Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to appear before both Committees and answer critical questions about the risk posed by Elon Musk’s recent illegal infiltration of the U.S. Treasury’s sensitive payments system. Smith joined every Senate Democrat on both committees in demanding Chair Mike Crapo (R-ID) and Chair Tim Scott (R-SC) immediately hold this hearing and give lawmakers and the American people answers.

“Elon Musk, an unelected billionaire whose companies have billions of dollars in federal contracts, has gained access to the U.S. government’s purse strings. He and his team, some of whom are barely out of college and have no experience in government, have breached the payment system responsible for trillions of dollars in Americans’ Social Security, Medicare benefits, tax refunds, and payments to millions of federal employees and contractors. The White House cannot even confirm Musk has a security clearance, yet he may have access to millions of Americans’ personal information. We need answers now. This power grab cannot stand, and this shouldn’t be partisan. Republicans should share our outrage, and if they do, they’ll heed our calls and haul in Scott Bessent to answer our questions,” said Senator Smith.

You can read the letter Smith sent along with her colleagues here or below. 

Dear Chairman Crapo and Chairman Scott

We write requesting that the Committee on Finance and the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs immediately hold hearings to examine reports that officials associated with Elon Musk and the so-called U.S. Department of Government Efficiency (“DOGE”) have gained access to systems that control payments to millions of American citizens, including Social Security, Medicare, tax refunds, and payments to small businesses.1 It is critical that the Senate understands this threat to the stability of a payment system that millions of Americans rely upon and that is critical to America’s global financial standing.

The Treasury Department’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service’s payment systems control the flow of more than $6 trillion in annual payments to households, businesses and other entities nationwide. These payment systems cover 87% of all federal payments and process more than a billion payments annually and are responsible for the distribution of Social Security and Medicare benefits, tax refunds, payments to federal employees and contractors, including competitors of Musk-owned companies, and thousands of other functions.

Putting this system in the hands of unaccountable political actors raises significant economic and national security risks. Information in these systems is critical to the Department’s management of the national debt. The takeover by Mr. Musk and his associates was achieved by engineering the ouster of a key official responsible for managing the extraordinary measures the Department has been taking to avoid a default. A misstep with these payment systems could lead to a technical default with a wide range of devastating consequences, from seniors missing Social Security payments to a global financial meltdown that costs trillions of dollars and millions of jobs.

Furthermore, granting access to Mr. Musk and his team - who may not have appropriate security clearances - access to this system risks exposing the sensitive tax and financial information of nearly every American. The Treasury payment system “includes sensitive personal information about the millions of Americans who receive Social Security checks, tax refunds and other unfettered access to such data, what they could do with it once inside the system, and what protections are in place to ensure the Department has been complying with its legal obligations under the Privacy Act, 26 U.S.C. 6103, as well as other statutes and Treasury regulations and policies that protect such sensitive information about millions of Americans.

Finally, we are deeply concerned that following the federal grant and loan freeze earlier this week, as well as Musk’s own comments on social media, officials associated with Musk may have intended to access these payment systems to illegally withhold payments authorized by law, and to circumvent the court orders prohibiting that freeze from going into effect.

We ask that the Finance Committee and Banking Committee swiftly schedule hearings to allow Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to answer critical questions about the risks posed by Musk and DOGE’s access to the Bureau of Fiscal Service’s payment systems.