Elon Musk now has access to your private data: he could delay or change your Social Security and Medicare payments

CEO of Tesla and owner of X (formerly Twitter), Elon Musk was a major backer of the Donald Trump presidential campaign and has been awarded a role as a “special government employee,” by Trump.

Musk is now an unpaid government staffer according to the White House, with the South African born’s Department Of Government Efficiency getting involved with a number of federal agencies in recent days.

Data concern

Consternation has been growing in recent days with citizens aware that Musk now has access to confidential personal data.

This concern was highlighted in the Washington Post with journalist Colbert King stating: “Musk and his team are gaining access to vast amounts of privileged and restricted government information on a scale unseen in our nation’s capital. The Treasury Department, has given his team license to scrutinize federal payment systems that annually disburse trillions of dollars in government expenditures. The systems also contain a trove of sensitive information about hundreds of millions of Americans ‒ information that private commercial interests and foreign governments would pay dearly to get their hands on.”

Musk’s department now have access to the personal information of every Social Security beneficiary ‒ and the ability to stop payments for any federal programs they dislike.”

Temporary good news?

On Thursday (February 6) a federal judge barred the US Treasury from handing data from its payments system to outsiders.

Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly put the temporary order in place after Musk boasted that his team at the Department of Government Efficiency was “rapidly shutting down” Treasury remittances, having apparently gained access to the system that disburses trillions of dollars, including social security payments and Medicare.

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