Musk is on an 'authoritarian rampage' — but it isn't just ideological: DC insider

Amy Goodman
and
Democracy Now
08 February
A 3D-printed miniature model of Elon Musk and the Tesla logo are seen in this illustration taken January 23, 2025.

A lawsuit by a coalition of labor unions Thursday prompted the Labor Department to agree not to release any sensitive economic and privacy data to DOGE, the so-called Department of Government Efficiency led by billionaire Trump donor Elon Musk. Musk’s group has already gained access to sensitive files and computer systems across other key agencies as part of a push to restructure much of the federal government. “There are huge problems with what Elon Musk and his team are doing to access the most critical personal data that this country owns,” says Rob Shriver, senior adviser to the accountability group Democracy Forward, which filed the lawsuit over Labor Department data, and a former acting director of the Office of Personnel Management. Legal challenges have also reversed the Trump administration’s executive order to freeze trillions in federal funding, delayed a buyout offer sent to most of the federal workforce to encourage mass resignations, and at least partially blocked Musk from accessing the Treasury Department’s payment system. We also speak with Public Citizen’s Robert Weissman, who calls Musk’s actions “an authoritarian rampage through the government … designed to access information, surveil the country, destroy the institutions of government and advance corporate interests without restraint.”


This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

We look now at some of the new legal hurdles facing Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, as it tries to dismantle and restructure, as it says, multiple federal agencies.

On Thursday, a lawsuit by a coalition of labor unions prompted the Labor Department to agree not to release any sensitive economic and privacy data to DOGE. The agency holds sensitive data likely including worker complaints against Musk and his companies. The lawsuit argues, quote, ”DOGE seeks to gain access to sensitive systems before courts can stop them, dismantle agencies before Congress can assert its prerogatives in the federal budget, and intimidate and threaten employees who stand in their way … The results have already been catastrophic. DOGE has seized control of some of the most carefully-protected information systems housed at the Treasury Department, taken hold of all sensitive personnel information at the Office of Personnel Management, and dismantled an entire agency within a week.” A full hearing on the case is set for today.

This comes as a similar lawsuit filed this week resulted in another agreement Thursday to stop DOGE from accessing millions of sensitive personal and financial records from the Treasury Department. The case was filed by Public Citizen on behalf of the American Federation of Government Employees, the Service Employees International Union and the Alliance for Retired Americans.

For more, we’re joined in by two guests. In Washington, D.C., Robert Weissman is with us, co-president of Public Citizen, which has also sued to stop the Trump administration’s attack on the U.S. Agency for International Development, USAID. And in Arlington, Virginia, Rob Shriver is with us, senior adviser to Democracy Forward, which filed the lawsuit over Labor Department data on behalf of a coalition of labor unions. Until days ago, he was the acting director of the Office of Personnel Management under the Biden administration.

We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Rob Shriver, let’s begin with you. Is DOGE, is Elon Musk committing crimes here?

ROB SHRIVER: So, Amy, that remains to be seen. But I think what we know right now is there are huge problems with what Elon Musk and his team are doing to access the most critical, personal data that this country owns. There are processes in place that protect that data from public disclosure, that make sure that it’s used appropriately and not to engage in retribution or gain competitive advantages. And I think the complaint that Democracy Forward filed on behalf of 4 million workers lays out in great detail the risk and the harm that is already happening.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the information that is at risk here and the young men, 19, what, to 26, who used to work for SpaceX or X or Tesla, Elon Musk’s private companies, who have access to this information.

ROB SHRIVER: Yeah, I think that latter part is incredibly alarming. We don’t know if these individuals are employees of the government. We don’t know if they’ve gone through any vetting process. You know, the background investigation process is not just some technical HR thing that people get annoyed about. It’s meant to determine whether people are subject to blackmail or foreign agents or of such questionable character that they can’t be trusted with sensitive data. So, to bypass that process, which — if that happened, would be a huge problem. We need to know. The American people need to know what has happened to get these people access.

And then, the types of data that you’re talking about include personally identifiable information, personal health records, data about workers’ compensation claims, data about Elon Musk’s competitors, and some of the data that our economy relies upon to be reported out objectively and without political interference.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you tell us what the agency that you were in charge of, the Office of Personnel Management — I mean, it sounds so bureaucratic, it’s hard for people to identify with it — what the information you held there is and why it’s so threatening? And can you talk, for example, about Medicaid?

ROB SHRIVER: Sure. So, OPM is essentially the HR agency of the federal government. It issues HR policy. It manages and processes retirements for federal employees. It also manages the largest group health insurance program in the world, the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program.

So, in order to carry out all of those functions — which, by the way, are largely nonpartisan, right? Like, most of the time OPM spends, like, just processing these retirement applications, managing health insurance — largely nonpartisan. But to carry out these missions, it has data on millions and millions of Americans, not just the 2.3 million active federal employees, but also the millions more retirees, the 8 million people who are enrolled in the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program, which includes federal employees, their family members, some of the highest-ranking officials in government, including members of Congress.

So, all of that data is housed at OPM and subject to very strict rules and controls for who gets to access it, for what purpose. There are immense cybersecurity protections, because the country may remember a large data breach in 2015 involving OPM that exposed millions of records of federal employees and family members. So, as a result of that, there are extensive protections in place to prevent something like that from happening again.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to go to Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey, who was with Congressmembers Paul Tonko and Yassamin Ansari, turned away from EPA headquarters. This is Senator Markey speaking at a news conference outside the EPA after they were denied entry.

SEN. ED MARKEY: We just went in and asked for a meeting with the DOGE representatives. And we were denied. We were turned away. And we just had a couple of simple questions for them. Are they still freezing EPA funding for all of the clean air and clean water programs in our country? Are they blocking the important work, which the EPA does on a daily basis, to protect the people in our country, the families of our country? And they did not give us the answers, in the same way that they are not giving the answers to every other program in our country — Medicaid, Medicare, the Affordable Care Act, all of those health and environmental programs that are so central to the well-being of every family in our country. Trump and Elon Musk and their unqualified, unelected, unwanted henchmen want to be able to carry out their attacks on your environment, your rights, your friends, your neighbors, under the cover of darkness. So we’re outside asking them to step out into the light of day.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s Massachusetts Senator Markey, standing outside the EPA. He’s stopped from going inside agencies like this. I mean, we’re talking about Treasury Department, as well, senators and congressmembers, police stopping them from moving in. But the DOGE kids — right? — 19, 20, 21, 22, they are moving in. How much information they’re getting is not clear. I want to bring Rob Weissman into this conversation. Robert Weissman is head of Public Citizen. Can you talk about this, what is happening right now, and what your lawsuit is all about?

ROBERT WEISSMAN: Yeah. Thanks, Amy.

I think the broad story is that Elon Musk and his acolytes are on an authoritarian rampage through the government. It’s only sort of ideological. It may be serving his business interests, we don’t know. But it’s designed to access information, surveil the country, destroy the institutions of government and advance corporate interests without restraint. I think, for Elon Musk, it’s fair to say he views this all as a kind of fun video game he’s going to play for a little while, then walk away. It’s been reported that the White House doesn’t actually know what Musk is doing in detail, but is fine. They have a kind of plausible deniability. When things go really wrong, then they pull it back in and tell him, “Don’t do that again.”

So, we are really in a dangerous time. We’re going to have to rely, at first, on the courts to restrain this. That’s what the Democracy Forward lawsuit is about. It’s what we’ve done at the Department of Treasury, and we were able to get an order yesterday restraining DOGE from accessing information at the Treasury Department, although still allowing two Musk acolytes inside the Treasury Department to get access to information, now down to one because of the resignation you referenced earlier.

This information is people’s tax data. It’s the government’s payment data. So it’s almost everyone in the country, personal information, income and more, access to information about government payees. And it’s not just that they want to see the information. It’s clear and been reported that their desire is to be able to cut off payments to people and organizations and corporations, contractors, whatever, that are due payment through congressionally appropriated money, through contractually obligated money, just to cut it off. That’s their version of efficiency. It has nothing to do with efficiency. It’s all about authoritarian imposition. And by the way, eventually, people who lose money are going to be paid. So the idea that they’re saving money is a lie. They’re going to be costing money, even in the direct sense, beyond the massive harm they’re going to conflict in this country and around the world.

AMY GOODMAN: Rob Weissman, Public Citizen recently filed a complaint with the Department of Justice urging an examination into whether FBI director nominee Kash Patel should have registered under FARA, the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Explain why.

ROBERT WEISSMAN: Well, in the course of seeking a nomination for a position like director of the FBI, individuals are required to make all kinds of disclosures. That’s considered by the Senate as part of the confirmation process. Kash Patel did not disclose to the Senate in time for his consideration, for his confirmation hearings, that he had been paid by the government of Qatar to do work — we don’t know exactly what. That information has now come out. There’s a question first why it wasn’t disclosed, and that the Senate should be able to ask him, “What were you doing?” and consider whether it wants to confirm as head of the FBI someone who was a paid agent for a foreign country. There’s also the nontrivial legal matter that you’re required to register when you work for foreign governments, which Kash Patel did not do.

Now, an extra interesting twist in this is, the new attorney general, Pam Bondi, also worked for Qatar. She did follow the requirements and register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. But in her first day in office, yesterday, she issued a memo in which she said, “You know what? We’re not going to enforce that law very much. By and large, you can violate the law, unless you’re engaged in espionage on behalf of a foreign country.” So, the new attorney general, who would be overseeing Kash Patel if he were confirmed, has already preannounced that she won’t really investigate this claim against Kash Patel, which is a serious one because it’s plain he didn’t file the registration requirements.

AMY GOODMAN: Speaking of Pam Bondi, the new attorney general, within her first days in office, she has done everything from ordering investigations into sanctuary cities to reinstating the federal death penalty. Does she have that power?

ROBERT WEISSMAN: Well, the attorney general has a lot of power and a lot of discretionary decision-making authority. It’s very likely she’s going to overstep it. No one should be surprised. She got the job because she was an ardent Donald Trump supporter. She maintained that through her confirmation hearing. She should not have been confirmed. She’s multiply conflicted with companies that the Department of Justice is or will be investigating. She proved herself unqualified by her devotion to Donald Trump and her defense of the coup on January 6.

But we are here where we are, and she’s going to use both the discretionary — legitimate discretionary authority of the attorney general and illegitimate authority of the attorney general. One of her memos yesterday basically informed the Justice Department workforce, “Hey, your job is to work for Donald Trump, and we expect you to be loyal to the president’s mission and priorities.” Well, that’s not the job of the Department of Justice. The Department of Justice is not the president’s lawyer. The Department of Justice are the people’s lawyers and required to uphold the laws of this country. And it’s going to be a tough time in the next few years. We’re going to see how vindictive she is. But the best-case scenario isn’t very good at all.

AMY GOODMAN: Public Citizen has filed a complaint with the Department of Justice and the Office of Government Ethics around President Trump, what, on January 17th, days before he was inaugurated, releasing an official Trump meme coin, which values skyrocketed to over $15 billion. What can you say about this?

ROBERT WEISSMAN: Yeah, in a different time, this would be headline stories for a couple weeks, but there’s too much craziness and danger going on. So, Trump launched this meme a couple days before the inauguration. He’s promoted it on Twitter and on Truth Social since he was inaugurated, saying, “Buy the meme.” When you get the meme, you’re essentially getting nothing. You pay what you pay. And Trump says it’s not an investment, it’s just support for an idea. So, effectively, you’re making a gift to Donald Trump. You can try to resell that gift if you want, but you’re basically making a gift to Donald Trump. That’s illegal for every federal employee except for the president, who can accept gifts. But the president is not permitted to solicit gifts. So we have argued that the idea that he’s asking people to buy this meme, which is valueless thing, not a security, as he says, constitutes the solicitation of a gift, and we’ve asked for an investigation.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, I want to go back to Rob Shriver about the tactics in court and on the streets right now. Tens of thousands of federal workers have accepted the email, the resignation, resigning and being paid for the next eight months. First of all, will they necessarily get that? Now, that’s been stopped. The deadline was supposed to be last night at midnight, and a judge said no. But talk about what this means. You represent so many unions. And also, is the federal workforce, one of the most diverse in the country, is that also why it’s being targeted?

ROB SHRIVER: Well, I think that’s a good question. Certainly, we have worked over multiple administrations to make the federal workforce reflect the diversity of America, through legitimate tactics like making sure we’re recruiting broadly for talent.

I think it’s really important that Democracy Forward went to court and got this extension on the deadline, because the fork-in-the-road offer is unprecedented. It’s not consistent with the legal approaches that an administration can use to do exactly this. Why haven’t they just offered federal employees early retirement across the board? Why haven’t they gone through the congressionally authorized separation program that is implemented by OPM regulations?

And then, in addition to that, there are budgetary questions, right? We’re on a continuing resolution through March 14th. What’s to stop the Republican-controlled Congress, in enacting a new budget, from saying, “We’re not going under this agreement to pay people not to their job”?

And then, lastly, the American people need to ask: What is the plan for delivering essential government services? What is the plan if a bunch of national security workers take this deal? Or if an entire office in a county in Iowa of USDA workers takes that deal, who’s going to help those farmers?

AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you both for being with us, Rob Shriver, senior adviser to Democracy Forward, former acting director of OPM — that’s the Office of Personnel Management — and Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen.

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