According to two agency officials, aides working under Elon Musk—entrusted with overseeing the U.S. government’s human resources agency—have blocked career civil servants from accessing the computer systems at the United States Office of Personnel Management that hold personal details on millions of federal employees.
In the 11 days since taking office, President Donald Trump has set in motion a sweeping government overhaul by dismissing and sidelining hundreds of civil servants as part of an effort to reduce bureaucracy and appoint more loyalists.
Elon Musk, the billionaire CEO of Tesla and owner of X, was tasked by Trump with shrinking the 2.2‑million‑strong civilian workforce and has quickly begun placing his supporters in key positions at the Office of Personnel Management.
Speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid possible retaliation, the two officials explained that some senior career employees at OPM have had their system access revoked.
They noted that among these systems is a vast database called Enterprise Human Resources Integration, which contains, as reported by the officials, information such as dates of birth, Social Security numbers, performance appraisals, home addresses, pay grades, and lengths of service for government workers.
“We have no visibility into what they are doing with the computer and data systems,” one of the officials said. “That is creating great concern. There is no oversight. It creates real cybersecurity and hacking implications.”
Despite the restrictions, affected officials can still log in to perform tasks like sending email, but they no longer have access to the extensive datasets that document every aspect of the federal workforce.
Neither Musk, the Office of Personnel Management, representatives of the new team, nor the White House immediately responded to requests for comment.
OPM has circulated memos that depart from the typical dry tone of government communications, instead urging civil servants to consider buyout offers to resign and take a vacation to a “dream destination.”
Don Moynihan, a professor at the Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan, noted that these changes within OPM have raised concerns about congressional oversight of the agency and about how Trump and Musk view the federal bureaucracy. “This makes it much harder for anyone outside Musk’s inner circle at OPM to know what’s going on,” Moynihan said.
Musk’s Impact
On January 20—the day Trump was inaugurated—a team composed of both current and former Musk employees assumed control of OPM. One OPM staff member explained that they relocated sofa beds to the fifth floor of the agency’s headquarters, an area that houses the director’s office and is accessible only with a security badge or a security escort.
The employee added that these sofa beds were installed to allow the team to work continuously around the clock.
In 2022, when Musk took over the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, he had already installed beds at X to enable employees to work longer hours—a strategy reflecting his reputation as a major donor to a famously demanding boss.
“It feels like a hostile takeover,” the employee said.
Officials reported that the new appointees at OPM have shifted the agency’s chief management officer, Katie Malague, from her former office to a new workspace on a different floor.
Malague did not respond to requests for comment.
The maneuvers by Musk’s aides at OPM, along with the turmoil reported on Friday inside the Treasury building due to actions by other Musk associates, underscore the broad influence Musk is exerting across government.
According to a Friday report from the Washington Post, David Lebryk—the highest-ranking career official at the U.S. Treasury Department—is set to leave his position following a dispute with Musk’s supporters over their request for access to payment systems.
The revamped team at OPM now includes software engineers as well as Brian Bjelde, who began his career with Musk’s SpaceX in 2003 as an avionics engineer before rising to serve as the company’s vice president of human resources. At OPM, Bjelde functions as a senior adviser.
Since Trump’s inauguration, the acting head of OPM, Charles Ezell, has been issuing memos to the entire government workforce, including one on Tuesday that offered federal employees the option to resign with eight months’ pay.
“No-one here knew that the memos were coming out. We are finding out about these memos the same time as the rest of the world,” one of the officials said.
Among those now running OPM is Amanda Scales, a former Musk employee who currently serves as the agency’s chief of staff. In several memos sent by Ezell on January 20 and 21—including one instructing agencies to identify federal workers on probation—department heads were directed to contact Scales via her OPM email address.
Another senior adviser is Riccardo Biasini, who previously worked as an engineer at Tesla and most recently held the role of director at The Boring Company, Musk’s tunnel-building venture in Las Vegas.
{Matzav.com}
Well as corrupt as they have been y do they deserve any better treatment