After impasse, Musk gains access to the powerful US Treasury Payment tool

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has granted access to the Federal Payment System to representatives of the so -called Government Efficiency Department (Doge).
With this, he handed over to Elon Musk and the team that he leads a powerful tool to monitor and potentially limit government spending.
The measure arises after a stalemate with a graduated treasure employee who had resisted to allow Musk’s men to have access to the department’s payment system, which distributes money on behalf of the entire federal government.
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The employee, a career civil servant named David Lebryk, was removed and then retired suddenly on Friday after the dispute, according to people along with his departure.
The system could give the Trump government another mechanism to try to unilaterally restrict the release of money approved by Congress for specific purposes, an initiative that has faced legal obstacles.

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Musk, who received a wide freedom from President Trump to find ways to reduce government spending, recently set his attention on treasure payment processes, criticizing the department in a post on social networks on Saturday, for not rejecting more payments considered fraudulent or undue.
Members of the musk team that received access to the payment system were appointed Treasury employees, underwent government background checks, and obtained the necessary security authorizations, according to two sources that requested anonymity.
Although their access was approved, Musk representatives have not yet obtained operational capacity and no government payment has been blocked, these people said.
Musk’s initiative is part of a broader payment system review to allow improper payments to be examined and is not an effort to arbitrarily block individual payments, people said familiar with the subject.
Career lawyers of the Treasury Department approved the concession of access, they added, and any changes in the system would go through a review and testing process.
Doge is not a government department, but a team within the administration. It was mounted under Trump by Musk to spread federal agencies in search of spending ways, reduce the size of the federal workforce and increase the efficiency of bureaucracy. Most of those who work in the initiative were recruited by Musk and his advisers.
Similar Doge teams have begun to require access to data and systems from other federal agencies, but none of these agencies controls the flow of money in the same way as the Treasury Department.
One of the doge affiliated people who now have access to the payment system is Tom Krause, executive director of a Silicon Valley company called Cloud Software Group.
Last weekend Krause pressed Lebrryk to gain access to the system. Lebrryk refused and was later placed on administrative license, according to people familiar with the matter.
A Treasury Department spokesman, a doge spokeswoman, and the White House did not respond to requests for an interview.
One billion payments per year
In a lawsuit normally conducted by public servants, the Treasury Department makes payments sent by agencies throughout the government, disbursing more than $ 5 trillion in the fiscal year of 2023.
Access to the system has historically been highly restricted as it contains sensitive personal information from millions of Americans who receive social security checks, tax refunds and other federal government payments.
Former employees said it is up to each agency to ensure that their payments are appropriate, not the relatively small team of the Treasury Department, which is responsible for processing more than one billion payments per year.

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Lebryk, the treasure career employee who retired on Friday, had resisted Trump’s transition team request last month to gain access to the data.
After Trump took office, the White House indicated that it should be removed from office and, according to a person familiar with the matter, Bessent suggested putting him on leave.
Concern about Social Security and Sensitive Information
Democrats raised concerns this week that the Trump and Bessent government, which was confirmed by the Senate this week only, were compromising the Federal Government’s payment system.
“To be straightforward, these payment systems simply cannot fail, and any politically motivated interference in them represents a risk of severe damage to our country and the economy,” wrote Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, the main Democrat in the Finance Commission From the Senate, in a letter to Bessent on Friday.
“I can’t think of any good reason why political operators who demonstrated a blatant disrespect for the law would need access to these sensitive and critical systems for the government’s mission.”

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On Saturday, Wyden expressed concern about the fact that access to the payment system was granted and pointed out that Musk – a billionaire with a vast portfolio – could have conflicts of interest.
“Benefits of Social Security and Medicare, subsidies, payments to government contractors, including those who compete directly with the musk companies themselves. All this, ”he wrote on social networks.
During the transition, Musk publicly opposed Bessent’s choice as Trump’s treasure secretary. At the time, Musk, who was just an influential counselor of Trump, publicly expressed his opinion that he preferred Howard Lutnick, an executive of Wall Street, for the position, because he considered that Bessent was “a choice that would keep everything as always.” Lutnick eventually became Trump’s choice for Trade Secretary.