Elon Musk now controls the American payments system

I feel like a continual splurge of Musk is happening, ever since Donald Trump became President, but the latest is really interesting as Elon Musk is now in control of the Treasury department payments system that runs America.

According to The Washington Post, longtime Treasury official David Lebryk is “expected to leave the agency soon”, despite the fact that President Donald Trump actually appointed him as acting treasury secretary just last week. Why? Because Elon Musk’s minions have attacked him “over access to the payment system the U.S. government uses to disburse trillions of dollars”.

Musk’s new Department of Government Efficiency is seeking access to the data at the Bureau of Fiscal Service systems, which control $6 trillion of money disbursement around the USA. Most Americans rely on these systems as they are the core systems that distribute Social Security and Medicare benefits, federal salaries, payments to government contractors, grants, and tax refunds, as well as thousands of other things.

Following up on this, The New York Times reported on Saturday that “Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent gave representatives of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency full access to the federal payment system late on Friday, handing Elon Musk and the team he is leading a powerful tool to monitor and potentially limit government spending.”

So yes, Musk now controls the American payments system and, combine this with my blog last week about X launching payments with Visa, and this should be interesting. After all, Musk does sometimes seem to be a loose leash.

https://bsky.app/profile/jc-econ.bsky.social/post/3lh222rrxks2b

https://bsky.app/profile/sarahposner.bsky.social/post/3lh22ku5ybc22

Just to add one more view, trial attorney Max Kennerl  comments that the American business elites have cosied up to Trump without seeming to care about how moves like this could cause a devastating economic meltdown. This is specifically as Lebryk was no novice. He joined the US Treasury in 1989 as an intern and has decades of experience. As New Republic  concludes in their commentary:

It appears that Musk, while upending the lives of federal workers, is now causing chaos with the U.S. government’s money flow. If federal officials who have served for decades under different presidents, including Trump, see a need to quit, that’s not a good sign for the country.

On the other hand, maybe the purpose of this action is to correct a huge waste of money given to people who don't deserve it?

The @DOGE team discovered, among other things, that payment approval officers at Treasury were instructed always to approve payments, even to known fraudulent or terrorist groups.

They literally never denied a payment in their entire career.

Not even once. https://t.co/kInoGWdw4C

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 1, 2025