Musk vows to cancel grants after gaining access to US Treasury payment system 

System disperses trillions of dollars in US government spending each year, including social security

[If Musk cuts Medicare and Social Security payments, I, and millions of other retirees, will have to go back to work to survive.]

Elon Musk has vowed to unilaterally cancel hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of government grants after apparently gaining access to review the US Treasury’s vast payments system, a move that prompted the sudden resignation of one of the department’s most senior officials.

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The threat came after Musk appeared to confirm on Saturday that DOGE had access to the Treasury system, which disperses trillions of dollars each year, including social security payments.

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Senator Ron Wyden, the top-ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said his office had been told that Treasury secretary Scott Bessent had granted DOGE “full” access to the system.

“Social Security and Medicare benefits, grants, payments to government contractors, including those that compete directly with Musk’s own companies. All of it,” he said.

The extent of DOGE’s access to the payments system appeared to be laid bare on Sunday by Musk, who responded to a post on X which contained a spreadsheet showing payments to a number of Lutheran charities.

The spreadsheet was posted by Mike Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser, who was pardoned in 2020 after pleading guilty to lying about his contacts with Russians.

Musk responded saying “The @DOGE team is rapidly shutting down these illegal payments”. It is unclear whether the billionaire, who has yet to take an official role within government, would have the legal authority to do so.