Donald Trump is the President of the United States, but why does Elon Musk have so much power?
One wonders why Musk is seemingly everywhere making major decisions about the financial and private data of the American people.
In 2014, Barack Obama created USDS, United States Digital Services with a clear picture in mind to update, upgrade and remove the arcane websites and put better technological solutions in its place. It was initially met with rigid opposition citing security laws but later on everyone got on board. The guidelines related to USDS were nimble at best but it was more the matter of faith than regulations.
#DYK: Elon Musk is not “nobody” in the government; he is acting director of the US DOGE Service Temporary Organization, which is the US Digital Service revamped. The USDS was first led by an ex-Google employee. pic.twitter.com/7zHfBUw6sD
— Sheeva Azma (@SheevaAzma) February 2, 2025
When Donald Trump took over the office, he brought with him the “tech guy” Elon Musk, who seems to be raiding every nook of governmental tech control.
Trump has changed USDS from United States Digital Services to United States DOGE Service with one executive order. By signing an executive order that has almost similar wording as to USDS regulations signed by Obama, he conveniently handed the control of USDS to Musk.
This control that came through DOGE is now placed under USDS and gave Musk an unchecked access to all the governmental websites without any security clearance. Now Musk has his team of young tech people, from all over the world, coming in and out of The White House unchecked and handling all the sensitive data.
In the name of removing unwanted data and details, and updating the current technological position of these websites, Elon Musk can now go through all the personal data of American people. His actions are wreaking several US privacy laws and no one knows how to stop him.
Let’s calmly talk about what we are witnessing in Washington D.C. with Elon Musk and the office of the USDS right now. They are conducting what is called a “Zero-Based Budgeting” process or in corporate terms a ZBB. President Carter tried it and failed saying the bureaucratic… pic.twitter.com/PWxPQFECDn
— Sparky Corp (@sparky_vq3) February 5, 2025
By giving his access to USDS and DOGE, Trump has essentially given him the power to control the Congress sanctioned spending of different departments and budgets.
People on both sides of the aisle have their opinions about this unchecked power.
“Some of the same skeptic rhetoric about DOGE sounded eerily similar to the scrutiny I received ten years ago,” Mikey Dickerson, the first digital service administrator, told NOTUS. What has changed in reality? He cited Musk’s unparalleled use of power and its increased reach.
However, people from the MAGA world though skeptical are not able to voice their opinion so openly. Although he refrained from calling it illegal, Sen. Kevin Cramer acknowledged that he is “a little uncomfortable” with the President using DOGE to block Congressionally appropriated spending. “I think DOGE provides a bit of a cover for people to do what they know — in some cases — should be done, but haven’t had the nerve to do it,” he said
Numerous laws are raising concerns about Musk’s alleged access to and dubious storage of American citizens’ data. These include the Impoundment Control Act, which places strict restrictions on when the executive branch can halt spending that has been approved by Congress, and federal data protection laws like the Privacy Act and the Federal Information Security Modernization Act.
InnovationRx: Billionaire Trump Donor Elon Musk Wages War On USAIDhttps://t.co/xothOcdq7b pic.twitter.com/MUQhQrg8EB
— Forbes (@Forbes) February 5, 2025
No wonder Trump never had any plans to ban TikTok in the name of data stealing when he conveniently handed over everything to Musk in the name of DOGE.
