Unions Sue To Block Musk Team’s Access To Treasury Payments

Federal employee unions on Monday sued to stop Elon Musk’s team from accessing a sensitive government system that controls the flow of trillions of dollars of payments as top Democrats stepped up their attacks on what they said was the billionaire’s “hostile takeover” of the Treasury Department.

The lawsuit, which was filed days after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent agreed to a plan giving department officials allied with Musk access to the system, landed amid growing pushback to the Tesla founder’s slash and burn efforts to cut hundreds of billions in federal spending.

The Alliance for Retired Americans, along with the American Federation of Government Employees and Service Employees International Union, claim that Musk’s efforts may have illegally exposed the personal data of millions of federal employees — as well as any other individual who does business with the federal government — to unauthorized Department of Government Efficiency personnel.

“The scale of the intrusion into individuals’ privacy is massive and unprecedented,” the groups said in their complaint, which was filed in federal court in the District of Columbia.

The complaint accuses the Trump administration of illegally granting Musk's team access in violation of federal laws that govern the privacy of agency records and protect the confidentiality of taxpayer information.

“Secretary Bessent’s action granting DOGE-affiliated individuals full, continuous, and ongoing access to that information for an unspecified period of time means that retirees, taxpayers, federal employees, companies, and other individuals from all walks of life have no assurance that their information will receive the protection that federal law affords,” the complaint says. “And because Defendants’ actions and decisions are shrouded in secrecy, individuals will not have even basic information about what personal or financial information that Defendants are sharing with outside parties or how their information is being used.”

Treasury spokespeople did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Democrats on Monday stepped up their attacks on Musk’s efforts, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer calling DOGE “an unelected shadow government” that is leading “hostile takeover” of federal agencies.

Schumer and Democratic House Leader Hakeem Jeffries said they were working on legislation aimed at beefing up safeguards to protect the confidential and personal information contained in the Treasury's payments system. Ways and Means Democrats have launched their own probe into DOGE’s access to the payment rails.

Other Democrats on Monday assailed the Musk team’s access to the Treasury system as unprecedented political meddling into key functions of government that are responsible for doling out benefits to Americans, such as Social Security payments and Medicare benefits.

President Donald Trump earlier on Monday said he supported Musk’s efforts when asked about the billionaire’s DOGE team having access to sensitive Treasury systems.

“Elon can't do, and won't do, anything without our approval,” Trump said from the Oval Office. “And we'll give him the approval where appropriate. Where not appropriate, we won't.”

“Where we think there's a conflict or there's a problem, we won't let him go near it,” Trump added. Trump said that Musk shared his goal to “shrink government.”

Public Citizen, which is working with the unions on the lawsuit, on Monday hired former Equal Employment Opportunity Commission General Counsel Karla Gilbride — who’d been fired by the Trump administration alongside two Democratic commissioners in a purge of the agency last week.

“The president is not a king, and his power has limits within our Constitutional system of checks and balances — checks and balances that, at Public Citizen, I will fight every day to preserve,” Gilbride said in a press release.