Explosive revelation: Trump administration admits Musk’s DOGE team accessed sensitive data without approval

The Donald Trump administration made a major admission in court. Officials revealed that staff members working on Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) had unauthorized access to sensitive data held by the Social Security Administration (SSA).

According to HuffPost, the Justice Department filed a “notice of corrections for the record”. The document stated that the administration had found actions by the SSA DOGE Team that were “potentially outside of SSA policy.” The filing admitted that officials had previously told the court that DOGE team members had no access to personal identifying information. That statement was false.

DOGE staffers did have access to sensitive information in several specific instances. In one case, an outside advocacy group contacted two members of the DOGE team. This group had acquired voter rolls and wanted help analyzing them to overturn election results in certain states.

The administration’s data breach reveals alarming security failures

The administration says it hasn’t found evidence that SSA data was successfully shared with this group. However, one DOGE team member signed a “Voter Data Agreement” with the advocacy group while acting in their official capacity as an SSA employee. Email communications reviewed by the SSA suggest the DOGE team members may have been asked to access SSA data to match against the voter rolls.

The filing revealed other breaches. In one instance, DOGE staffers shared an email attachment with their affiliates in other government agencies. That attachment contained the names and addresses of approximately a thousand people. This data security failure adds to Trump’s recent controversial healthcare funding promise that raised questions about government spending.

Most of these breaches of SSA policy took place last March. This was mostly before a federal court granted a request from the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees to block DOGE from accessing SSA records. However, the Supreme Court ruled in June that DOGE could continue its work while the case made its way through the courts.

This new court filing supports the concerns raised by the SSA’s Chief Data Officer, Charles Borges. Borges submitted a whistleblower complaint to Congress in August. He accused DOGE staffers of improperly creating a live copy of Social Security’s most sensitive database and recklessly storing this copy on a cloud server.

Borges warned about the potential consequences. He stated that “Americans may be susceptible to widespread identity theft, may lose vital healthcare and food benefits, and the government may be responsible for re-issuing every American a new Social Security Number at great cost.” 

Debra Katz, Borges’s attorney, said that “this court filing validates the concerns he raised that the actions of DOGE officials compromised the data of Americans.” Musk initially said the DOGE initiative would root out fraud in federal agencies and save the government $2 trillion. The effort ended last year, and Musk had a falling-out with President Trump in June. This controversy comes as Russia criticizes Trump’s Greenland acquisition plans, adding to the administration’s challenges.