The secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessent, gave representatives of the so-called government efficiency department full access to the federal payment system at the end of Friday, according to three families with the change, putting Elon Musk and The team he directs a powerful tool to monitor and potentially limit public spending.
The new authority follows an impasse this week with a senior treasure official who had resisted to authorize the lieutenants of Mr. Musk in the payment system of the ministry, who sends money on behalf of the entire federal government. The manager, a career official appointed David Lebryk, was put on leave and suddenly retired on Friday after the dispute, according to people familiar with his exit.
The system could give the Trump administration another mechanism to try to unilaterally restrict the disbursement of the silver approved for specific purposes by the congress, a push which was confronted with roadblocks.
Mr. Musk, who received great latitude by President Trump to find ways to reduce public spending, recently obsessed the processes of payment of the Treasury, criticizing the department in an article on social networks on Saturday for not having rejected More payments like fraudulent or inappropriate.
It is not clear if the team led by Mr. Musk, the richest man in the world, has blocked payments since he had access to the system.
The Government Ministry of Efficiency, or Doge, is not a government department, but a team from the administration. It was set up in the direction of Mr. Trump by Mr. Musk to surpass himself in federal agencies seeking means of reducing expenses, reducing the size of the federal workforce and bringing more ‘Bureaucracy efficiency. Most people working on the initiative were recruited by Mr. Musk and his collaborators.
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