A 25-year-old engineer in Elon Musk’s DOGE has access to a “top-secret” federal payment system within the Treasury Department, a report said Tuesday.
The engineer, Marko Elez, reportedly has the ability to alter the code responsible for the vast majority of payments the U.S. government makes to its citizens, including Social Security, tax returns, and much more.
Elez was identified by sources who spoke to WIRED, making him the seventh young DOGE staffer to be unmasked on Musk’s team, which has shaken up Washington as the billionaire tries to made good on his promise to cut billions of federal spending.
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The supposed whiz kid has been granted access “not just to read but to write code” within the U.S. Payment Automation Manager and Secure Payment System at the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, WIRED reported.
These systems are said to be housed on a “top-secret mainframe” that hosts information about government payments amounting to more than a fifth of the U.S. economy. That includes grants and payouts to government contractors that would likely include private sector competitors to Musk’s companies.
The world’s richest man initially pushed back against reports identifying his team of young staffers and has downplayed the power they have over sensitive information, claiming his team has “read-only access” to the systems they have infiltrated.
WIRED’s report claims Elez has beyond “read only” powers in his role, however, which has granted him the ability to “navigate the entire file system, change user permissions, and delete or modify critical files.” There is no evidence to suggest Elez has acted nefariously with his newly-acquired access, however.
That has not stopped alarm bells from ringing in certain circles of the federal government. Talking Points Memo reported there are fears Elez may “go haywire” and cause serious damage.
“If you would have asked me a week ago, I’d have told you that this kind of thing would never in a million years happen,” a federal IT employee told WIRED. “But now, who the f--k knows.”
Elez has wiped much of his online presence, including his LinkedIn page, much like others in DOGE who were identified Sunday. An X account in his name has no posts and no profile photo, leaving only a cover image of a SpaceX rocket and an American flag. It still follows 14 people, however, including Musk, DOGE’s official account, and the 23-year-old DOGE engineer Luke Farritor, who has made his account private.
Elez did not immediately respond to request for comment.
Records suggest Elez graduated from Rutgers University—a public university in his native New Jersey—in 2021 and went on to work Musk’s space company, SpaceX, where reports say he focused on vehicle telemetry, starship software, and satellite software.
Elez then joined Musk’s team at X, WIRED reported, where he worked on search AI. It appears he has no prior experience in government work, but Musk has been resharing posts that have claimed this is a good thing for his young team.
“The [average] age of NASA’s mission control team during the Apollo era was 27— hey put humans on the moon,” read a post shared by Musk on Tuesday. “Young people bring a force of curiosity and creativity that can disrupt the status quo. If we’re serious about cutting waste in gov spending, let’s not turn away new minds.”
