Chuck Schumer claims Elon Musk, DOGE operating as ‘unelected shadow government’

Schumer along with a few other Democratic lawmakers held a press conference, warning that staffers at Elon Musk's DOGE have been given access by President Donald Trump to the Treasury Department payments system, where he alleges the staffers have open access to "the most sensitive information of virtually every US citizen" without any guardrails.

He speculated that Musk and DOGE could cut off funding to veterans, social security payments, and other programs and implied that Musk is in it for more than "efficiently."

"DOGE staffers, whomever they are, now have unprecedented access to the most sensitive payment data in the entire federal government, with no transparency, with no guard rails," Schumer added. The Democratic lawmaker suggested that Musk and DOGE would use the Treasury Department to enrich Trump's “billionaire friends."

Schumer said that DOGE has no authority over spending, and called the staffers associated with Musk "right-wing extremists." The presser from the Democrats comes after Trump as well as Musk indicated over the weekend that the United States Agency for International Development may be getting shut down.

After DOGE was able to get access to the Treasury Department over the weekend, Musk posted on X that his "team discovered, among other things, that payment approval officers at Treasury were instructed always to approve payments, even to known fraudulent or terrorist groups."

After the weekend episode, staffers at DOGE have been targeted in media as well as by many Democrats online. Some social media users have doxed the staffers’ names and threats have been made against them online.