ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Tech billionaire Elon Musk was the biggest donor in last year's election, and now as head of President Trump's DOGE team, his job is to slash government spending. The entity's actions are causing confusion and chaos at federal agencies and raising security and legal concerns. NPR's Shannon Bond covers Elon Musk. Shannon, catch us up. What are some of the things that DOGE is doing already?
SHANNON BOND, BYLINE: Well, Ari, as you may have heard, Musk says DOGE is eliminating the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID. Late last night, Musk posted on his platform, X, quote, "we spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper." And that's not all. Even though a lot of the details about DOGE are still unclear, other news outlets have reported Musk's deputies there have gotten access to key systems throughout the U.S. government. That includes the system the Treasury Department uses to pay everything from Social Security and Medicare benefits to Americans' tax refunds, as well as access to personnel files on millions of federal workers.
SHAPIRO: Well, is all of this legal?
BOND: I mean, that is the big question. Now, on this USAID shut down, Musk said in a livestream chat on his platform, X, last night that he does have Trump's backing to do this.
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ELON MUSK: And I actually checked with him a few times, too. Are you sure? Like, yes. So we're shutting it down.
BOND: Now, on Monday, Trump was asked about whether dissolving USAID requires an act of Congress. He suggested that would not be necessary if the agency is what he described as, quote, "an act of fraud." Democratic senators say it would require Congress's approval. And they, as well as, you know, many workers and former officials I've been speaking with, are very concerned about particularly these reports that DOGE representatives are getting access to classified materials at USAID.
There's also glaring alarm about DOGE's access to that Treasury payment system, you know, concerns that Musk could seek to block money from going to programs and policies the Trump administration want to - wants to cut. None of this is normal, says Richard Painter, who was the government's chief ethics lawyer in the George W. Bush administration. He says, in particular, accessing sensitive data, shutting down building access, has not happened before.
RICHARD PAINTER: I have never seen anything like this before. We do not have a "RoboCop" clause of the United States Constitution.
SHAPIRO: Well, Musk is the leader of DOGE, but what can you tell us about who is actually carrying out this work?
BOND: Yeah, I mean, so let's start with Musk, actually. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said today, Elon Musk is what's known as a, quote, "special government employee." That's a temporary appointment to perform limited services. She said she does not have details about Musk's security clearance, and we don't know about the status of others working at DOGE, like whether or not they are government employees, what clearances they may have.
What we do know, Ari, is that some of these folks are young engineers who have come in from Silicon Valley. So for example, an e-mail sent early Monday morning to USAID staff about the building being closed in Washington today had the name of a former Twitter employee on it. His LinkedIn page describes him as a special adviser to the director at the Office of Personnel Management, which is essentially the federal government's HR Department. But he now also has a USAID email address. So we just don't know about where these people are.
SHAPIRO: Has Musk responded to the criticism of what DOGE is doing?
BOND: Well, he has been posting a lot on X today. He says, Democrats who are protesting these moves, both at USAID and at Treasury, are, quote, "corrupt." And Musk has made it clear he believes he has a mandate to cut what he sees as waste. But one of the big issues that all of this is hitting up against, Ari, is that it is Congress that has the power of the purse - right? that gets to decide spending. So what DOGE is doing here with these sort of cuts, these sort of unilateral decisions about shutting down agencies, does seem to be a direct challenge to those powers that do reside with Congress.
SHAPIRO: Thank you. That's NPR's Shannon Bond.
BOND: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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