Reports: Musk's DOGE staffers taking drastic steps to cut costs at OPM, Treasury

Much has been made about the seemingly unlikely alliance between Donald Trump and Elon Musk, but there seems to be little doubt that the tech billionaire is making his mark on the new administration during its earliest days.

According to Breitbart, Musk's governmental reform initiative, referred to as the Department of Governmental Efficiency (DOGE), has reportedly expanded into the federal human resources realm, with aides having recently locked career bureaucrats out of critical computer systems.

OPM takeover underway?

Musk is said to have placed allies of DOGE inside the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the central human resources arm of the federal government.

Reuters, citing anonymous internal sources, reported that longtime career staffers at the agency have lost access to the government computer systems they have always used, attributing the situation to Musk.

“We have no visibility into what they are doing with the computer and data systems,” an insider explained. “That is creating great concern. There is no oversight. It creates real cybersecurity and hacking implications.”

With Musk's lieutenants having, according to reports, effectively assumed control of OPM operations, scores of federal employees have been encouraged to take buyouts that would help achieve the efficiencies DOGE has been tasked with identifying.

One employee who is clearly shocked and agitated by recent developments declared, “It feels like a hostile takeover.”

Treasury up next?

According to Fox News, Musk has also set his sights on the Treasury Department, blasting what he says are the “fraudulent” payments routinely sent out by the agency.

Adding to the controversy, however, are reports suggesting that Musk's DOGE staffers have obtained access to the federal government's payment system.

Musk himself took to X on Saturday and wrote, “The @DOGE team discovered, among other things, that payment approval officers at Treasury were instructed always to approve payments, even to known fraudulent or terrorist groups. They literally never denied a payment in their entire career. Not even once.”

Democrat Sen. Ron Wyden decried the situation on Saturday, saying, “Sources tell my office that Treasury Secretary Bessent has granted DOGE *full* access to this system. Social Security and Medicare benefits, grants, payments to government contractors, including those that compete directly with Musk's own companies. All of it.”

With reports suggesting that DOGE is planning to halt payments to federal contractors as Musk's cost-cutting investigations continue apace, it remains to be seen whether the move will spark considerable backlash or if it is just the sort of drastic action a majority of the electorate wanted.