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Billionaire Elon Musk outlined a list of “super obvious” changes that his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) plans to implement at the U.S. Treasury Department this weekend. Musk stated that Treasury officials are working to simplify the government’s books for auditing and increase accountability for fund allocation. The changes also require Treasury employees to update the congressional “do not pay” list more frequently, which identifies fraudsters and illegal fronts.
“Nobody in Treasury management cared enough before. I do want to credit the working-level people in Treasury who have wanted to do this for many years, but have been stopped by prior management,” Musk said.
“Everything at Treasury was geared towards complaint minimization. People who receive money don’t complain, but people who don’t receive money (especially fraudsters) complain very loudly, so the fraud was allowed to continue,” he added.
Musk emphasized that the changes are being implemented by long-time career government employees, not DOGE personnel. “It is ridiculous that these changes didn’t exist already! Yesterday, I was told that there are currently over $100B/year of entitlements payments to individuals with no SSN or even a temporary ID number,” he continued. “If accurate, this is extremely suspicious. When I asked if anyone at Treasury had a rough guess for what percentage of that number is unequivocal and obvious fraud, the consensus in the room was about half, so $50B/year or $1B/week!! This is utterly insane and must be addressed immediately.”
Musk’s comments come after a federal judge blocked DOGE from accessing Treasury Department systems. The Tesla CEO condemned the ruling as “insane.” The lawsuit, filed by 19 Democratic attorneys general, alleged that Musk’s team violated the law by gaining “full access” to Treasury’s payment systems, which include information about Americans’ Social Security, Medicare, veterans’ benefits, and tax refunds.
The lawsuit was filed in New York by the office of New York Attorney General Letitia James, who stated, “President Donald Trump does not have the power to give away Americans’ private information to anyone he chooses, and he cannot cut federal payments approved by Congress.”
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has previously expressed support for Musk and DOGE, stating that the U.S. “doesn’t have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem.” Bessent clarified, “At the Treasury, our payment system is not being touched. We process 1.3 billion payments a year. There is a study being done — can we have more accountability, more accuracy, more traceability that the money is going where it is?”
