The spies Musk sent into the cold are a counterintelligence disaster in the making

Most people would agree that, if waste could reasonably be reduced within the US federal government, the reduction would ultimately be beneficial to US taxpayers. Unfortunately, the tactics by which Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—which has a stated aim of cutting $2 trillion of government waste—is pursuing its work are far from reasonable. In fact, those efforts create major threats to US national security. Some of its activities constitute a counterintelligence disaster in the making.

There are at least two ways in which Musk’s efficiency entity threatens US national security. First, it does not appear that requisite security standards are being employed by Musk’s entity engineers when accessing sensitive US databases. Second, the manner in which US federal civil servants are being abruptly laid off, with reportedly hundreds of thousands potentially facing unemployment, are guaranteed to be fertile hunting grounds for hostile foreign intelligence services. Both of these areas constitute major threats to US national security.

Efforts to streamline the US federal workforce and bureaucracy are not new. Almost every US president rides into the White House claiming that he will reduce waste in the massive federal government. The US national security establishment has indeed previously been on the receiving end of major cuts. In 1977, CIA director Stansfield Turner, a distinguished US Navy admiral, fired about 800 CIA officials in what was known as the “Halloween massacre” on account of the date on which it happened. The context for Turner doing so was severe criticism of the CIA following revelations of its abuses in Church Committee hearings in 1975 that detailed CIA coups, assassinations, and illegal interception of domestic communications. And in the 1990s President Bill Clinton took an even bigger axe to the US federal workforce, managing to eliminate about 377,000 jobs.

Tough audits of government also took place on the other side of the Atlantic. Back in 1957, Britain’s Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, famously called for an audit of the British empire. The context for Macmillan’s “profit and loss account” of empire was a dire financial situation facing Britain’s exchequer. The resulting audit revealed the drain of Britain’s far-flung outposts of empire on the British economy. The audit accelerated the process—through defense reviews and white papers and parliamentary debates—of articulating Britain’s withdrawal from its empire east of the Suez Canal. This sequence of events is essential for understanding how a reasonable and secure government audit can occur: a financial line-by-line reckoning, reports, and analysis delivered to decision makers, and then a policy agenda pursued. President Clinton wound down jobs in the US federal workforce in just such a disciplined and judicious process that incorporated bipartisan congressional feedback and leveraged individuals with extensive civil service experience.

There is no parallel in modern history for the position of Musk in the Trump administration: Musk is himself a major government contractor—from SpaceX to Tesla, Starlink, and Neuralink—who is now responsible for finding efficiencies within the government departments with which he is contracting. A Trump supporter might well say this is fair enough: The president was given a mandate in the general election to take drastic action. The problem is, in its effort to take quick, and drastic, action, there is growing evidence that the Trump administration and Musk’s efficiency entity are riding roughshod over security standards needed to safeguard sensitive US data and national interests.

The data security problem. Musk’s engineers have been given access to US federal databases, but their activities in those systems are far from transparent or accountable to the US public. According to public reporting, on February 11 Musk’s efficiency engineers were “being vetted” at the time they were given access to US federal databases that, in some cases, contain highly sensitive information on the US government and citizens. At the time of writing, it appears that such engineers have accessed about 15 government agency databases, including the US Treasury and its payment system, by which the federal government pays out trillions of dollars.

The process of vetting of Musk’s engineers is clearly inadequate, akin to putting the cart before the horse. Any reasonable person would expect that such workers should have been already vetted before being given access to such databases. The US public has little information about what security procedures or background checks have been employed for Musk’s workers. It is known that on Trump’s first day in office, they were given the requisite security clearance for accessing the Treasury database. But such background checks are usually extremely lengthy, taking months to complete. What little information can be pulled together about Musk’s engineers does not inspire confidence. Some have been associated with racist and eugenicist posts on social media, which have led to at least one such engineer being dismissed. One of Musk’s workers went by the online handle “Big Balls.”

Simply put, we do not know what vetting standards were applied to “Big Balls.”

It has frequently been suggested that Musk’s computing engineers were given only “read access” to US databases. The suggestion is now known to be incorrect. In at least one instance, an engineer was given both read and write access to the data, meaning that he could alter code and therefore data if he chose to do so.

Many questions remain unanswered about the activities of Musk’s efficiency entity. What we can say for certain, however, is that the data it collects will be a prime target for hostile foreign intelligence services—China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. We can hope that Musk’s engineers are taking reasonable requisite security standards to safeguard the data they collect. Hope, however, is not a strategy, and initial indications are not encouraging. In what can only be described as an egregious move, the Trump administration published a letter containing the names of CIA officials. This will be an intelligence bonanza for any hostile state regime seeking to uncover the activities of the CIA.

Fired workers are targets for foreign spies. Musk’s efficiency entity poses a second threat to US national security by the manner in which it is firing large numbers of US civil servants. Abruptly dismissed US workers are guaranteed to be prime targets for foreign intelligence services. History shows that grievances and money are significant motivating factors for espionage.

In the early Cold War, the Soviet Union achieved some of its most important espionage achievements through ideologically committed agents—think of the Five Cambridge Spies or the atom spies like Klaus Fuchs inside the Manhattan Project. Late in the Cold War, Western services, like Britain’s MI6, were likewise able to recruit ideologically committed agents behind the Iron Curtain, one of the most successful of whom was Oleg Gordievsky, a KGB bureau chief in London who passed secrets to British intelligence.

Some of the most damaging spies during the Cold War were, however, motivated less by ideology and more by a sense of grievance against their employer and the desire for flamboyant lifestyles. This was the case with Aldrich Ames inside the CIA and Robert Hansen within the FBI. Neither Ames nor Hansen was the “secret agent” they wanted to be. Their senses of insecurity and desire for money were skillfully exploited by Soviet and then Russian intelligence services.

The manner in which dedicated civil servants are being dismissed out of hand effectively constitutes a ticking time bomb for US counterintelligence. Gone are the days of having to recruit spies in-person; China’s intelligence services are known to have recently recruited US sources with security clearances simply by using LinkedIn. And it is not difficult to imagine a foreign intelligence service preying on a sense of grievance among those abruptly dismissed from the US federal civil service, as well as offering handsome payments for any US state secrets they may hold in their heads. With the rising cost of living and mortgage payments to meet, US federal workers—whether newly laid off or merely uncertain about their job prospects—may unfortunately be tempted to look elsewhere to keep their families solvent.

Evidence that the Trump administration is not following a well-thought-through plan when it comes to dismissing US workers has been demonstrated in public: More than 300 employees at the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration, whose jobs include safeguarding US nuclear secrets, were abruptly let go on February 13^th—but then were equally abruptly rehired when it became apparent their jobs were essential for US national security. The same has reportedly occurred to experts in avian flu at the Department of Agriculture, dismissed as the US faces an outbreak of avian flu.

The overarching danger to US national security. Musk’s unfettered access to sensitive US federal databases will almost certainly cause a chill among America’s closest intelligence allies. The US government is hard-wired with the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand in an intelligence-sharing alliance known as the Five Eyes. Musk’s intrusions into databases will doubtless cause alarm among those Five Eye partners.

Musk has not yet taken his chainsaw to the CIA, NSA, or the FBI, but when he inevitably does so, the results are likely to be even worse from a counterintelligence perspective than his intrusions hitherto into other government agencies. Such three-letter agencies hold the crown jewels of US state secrets. The FBI’s new director, Kash Patel, has stated that he would turn the FBI headquarters into a museum in honor of the “deep state.” Along with the appointment of Tulsi Gabbard as the US Director of National Intelligence, Patel’s installation to the head of the FBI must be causing allies to wonder what is going on in the United States and whether Donald Trump’s administration really can safeguard national secrets.

It seems unlikely the activities of Musk’s efficiency entity will be subject to oversight from the Republican-controlled Congress. Will that entity be publishing a report of its audit of the US federal government? Will Musk recuse himself, as he claims he will do, when it comes to his own conflicts of interest? As dozens of lawsuits over Musk’s activities play out, we should all hope that the US courts will eventually answer some of these questions and provide a check on any illegalities conducted by Musk’s efficiency entity. A truly worrying development will occur, however, if the Trump administration refuses to comply with court orders in this regard. Vice President JD Vance—a graduate of Yale Law School—has insinuated that such defiance of the courts could happen. If this does transpire, the US government will be not only in a constitutional but a true national security crisis.