An attorney for the Justice Department told a federal judge there was a “firewall” between employees at the Treasury Department and Musk’s office at the White House.
WASHINGTON — Billionaire Elon Musk does not have direct access to sensitive information about millions of Americans contained in Treasury Department payment systems, the Justice Department told a federal judge Wednesday.
U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ordered attorneys for the government to appear for a virtual status hearing Wednesday afternoon after a coalition of retirees and government workers filed a lawsuit in federal court in D.C. seeking to bar Musk and the advisory body he heads, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), from accessing private information contained in Medicare and Social Security databases.
The lawsuit came after two Musk allies were detailed to the Treasury Department as part of what the DOJ described Wednesday as a directive to prevent “significant payment fraud.” Brad Humphreys, a senior trial attorney with the DOJ’s Federal Programs Branch, said the two men had been brought on as special government employees by the Treasury Department and that there was a “firewall” between them and the rest of DOGE, which is housed in the White House Executive Office of the President. Humphreys identified the two employees as Tom Krause, the CEO of Cloud Software Group, and Marko Elez, who worked as an engineer at Musk’s company SpaceX.
According to Humphreys, Krause and Elez have read-only access, meaning they are unable to make changes directly to Treasury’s systems. In response to direct questions from Kollar-Kotelly, Humphreys said the DOJ had no evidence data had been compromised.
“The allegation that that information is being shared outside of Treasury is not correct, as far as we know,” Humphreys said.
Collectively, systems managed by Treasury generate billions of payments a year, amounting to more than a trillion dollars, for Americans who receive government pensions, Medicare or Social Security benefits, or other payments under programs like the federal Black Lung Program. Attorneys for the Alliance for Retired Americans, which filed the lawsuit Monday, said millions of Americans who receive those benefits should not have to worry that they will be sending personal information to Musk.
“Millions of people cannot avoid engaging in financial transactions with the federal government and, therefore, cannot avoid having their sensitive personal and financial information maintained in government records,” attorneys for the public interest law firm Public Citizens Litigation Group, which is representing the retirees, wrote.
On Wednesday, Public Citizens attorney Nandan Joshi said they had learned more about DOGE’s work at Treasury since filing the suit but were still concerned about the possibility that data could be compromised in the future. Joshi said they were still seeking a temporary restraining order (TRO) to allow them to complete basic discovery.
“It’s impossible to unbreak the egg,” Nandan said.
Kollar-Kotelly indicated Wednesday she was agreeable to a TRO that would “basically keep the status quo for a very short period of time.” She gave the government until 6 p.m. to brief her on whether the Treasury Department would agree to such an order.
Wednesday’s hearing was the first court appearance out of at least four lawsuits filed in federal court in D.C. challenging Musk’s outsized role in President Donald Trump’s administration. Musk has taken credit for the administration’s efforts to shut down USAID, which has for decades been the country’s primary method of distributing international humanitarian aid, and DOGE employees have reportedly been given access to multiple other federal agencies, including the Departments of Labor and Education.
Democrats in Congress have rallied in opposition to Musk. Speaking to a crowd of protesters outside the Treasury Department building Tuesday evening, House and Senate Democrats said they would fight any efforts by the “unelected billionaire” to gain access taxpayer data.
Trump told reporters earlier this week Musk’s role is advisory and that he “can’t do and won’t do anything without our approval.” On Wednesday, Humphreys told Kollar-Kotelly Musk and DOGE’s job was to set “high-level priorities” for the employes detailed to agencies to follow – specifically rooting out waste and fraud.
Elsewhere Wednesday, Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy posted on Musk’s social media site X, formerly Twitter, that he had “talked to the DOGE team.”
“They are going to plug in to help upgrade our aviation system,” Duffy wrote.