A judge has ordered Elon Musk to immediately destroy any financial data he has obtained from millions of Americans.
The world’s richest man has controversially taken center stage in the Trump administration following his appointment as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
While it technically isn’t a governmental body, the department has been described by Trump as an outside advisor on government spending.
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Since Trump re-entered the Oval Office last month, fears have grown over Musk’s involvement.
Last week, the Tesla boss gained access to the Treasury’s payment system and protests broke out in Washington DC when elected officials were blocked from entering the Department of Education building.
The public have raised concerns over the possibility that Musk can access confidential information including social security numbers and Medicare benefits payments.
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And it certainly seems like he’s been sifting through a lot of information, after he made claims that widespread fraud is happening in the payment of ‘federal entitlements’, which includes things like social security.
Taking to his own social media platform X, formerly Twitter, Musk said: “At this point, I am 100% certain that the magnitude of the fraud in federal entitlements (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare, Disability, etc) exceeds the combined sum of every private scam you’ve ever heard by FAR. It’s not even close.”
In a previous tweet, Musk claimed that $100 billion a year was being paid to people with no social security number or ‘even a temporary ID number’.
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The SpaceX CEO went on to say: “When I asked if anyone at Treasury had a rough guess for what percentage of that number is unequivocal and obvious fraud, the consensus in the room was about half, so $50B/year or $1B/week!! This is utterly insane and must be addressed immediately.”
However, Musk’s investigation into the matter is on hold for now, after New York judge Paul A. Engelmayer placed an injunction to block him from accessing the personal financial data of millions of Americans.
The preliminary injunction came into effect on Saturday (February 8), and will last until the next court hearing on Friday (February 14).
As part of the ruling, Musk and his team have been ordered to immediately destroy any copies of records that they have.
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This comes after the Trump administration was sued by 19 state attorneys general, who claim that giving DOGE access to the records violates federal law.
Musk doesn’t seem best pleased by the injunction, which he has taken to X to describe it as ‘absolutely insane’.
He wrote: “How on Earth are we supposed to stop fraud and waste of taxpayer money without looking at how money is spent?”
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In the judge’s order, it said that states would ‘face irreparable’ harm if immediate relief wasn’t implemented.
The order continued: “That is both because of the risk that the new policy presents of the disclosure of sensitive and confidential information and the heightened risk that the systems in question will be more vulnerable than before to hacking.”