Last week, Michelle King, the acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration, sought to assure the Democrats on Capitol Hill about the presence of two of Elon Musk’s allies at her agency. The agency holds sensitive personal information, such as medical records and bank account numbers, for approximately 70 million Americans, who receive over $1 trillion in benefits annually. In a letter to Senator Ron Wyden, Ms. King emphasized her commitment to protecting this data, assuring adherence to all relevant laws and regulations. However, when Musk’s team requested access to the agency’s data, Ms. King’s resistance led to her and her chief of staff being removed from their positions. This incident, not unlike others in the federal government, highlights Musk’s team’s relentless pursuit of unrestricted access to personal information collected by the U.S. government. At the Internal Revenue Service, Musk’s team aims to grant one of its members, a software engineer, access to data from around 270 million tax returns, causing unease among career civil servants accustomed to safeguarding such data.
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