The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has set up X accounts for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), seeking “insights on finding and fixing waste, fraud and abuse” at the two agencies.
Elon Musk, who is leading DOGE’s efforts to cut trillions of dollars in government spending, reposted messages from both accounts Monday.
The new X accounts come as the DOGE team is reportedly seeking access to a sensitive IRS system, known as the Integrated Data Retrieval System (IDRS), that the agency uses to access taxpayer accounts.
Two top Democrats, Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), wrote to acting IRS commissioner Douglas O’Donnell on Monday, asking for information about DOGE’s access to the sensitive IRS system and voicing concerns about potential privacy violations.
“No executive order requiring agency heads to provide DOGE personnel access to IRS records or information technology systems supersedes the federal tax code,” they wrote.
“Software engineers working for Musk seeking to gain access to tax return information have no right to hoover up taxpayer data and send that data back to any other part of the federal government and may be breaking the law if they are doing so,” the senators continued.
As the DOGE team has moved from agency to agency on its cost-cutting mission, it has frequently sought access to technological infrastructure, sparking concerns over data privacy and security.
Late last month, DOGE staffers clashed with longtime Treasury official David Lebryk as they sought access to a sensitive federal payment system at the agency. Lebryk, who served as acting Treasury secretary before Scott Bessent’s confirmation, was placed on leave and ultimately resigned.
Two DOGE-affiliated employees, tech executive Tom Krause and 25-year-old Marko Elez, received access to the system known as the Fiscal Service, which handles 90 percent of federal payments.
While they were meant to receive read-only access, Elez “mistakenly” received read and write access for a brief period in early February, a recent court filing revealed. However, Elez never utilized the write privileges to make any changes to the system, a Treasury official wrote in a declaration to the court.
Elez resigned shortly after, when The Wall Street Journal resurfaced several racist social media posts he made from a now-deleted account.
