Musk Says DOGE Is Halting Treasury Payments to US Contractors

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-02-02/musk-says-doge-is-rapidly-shutting-down-treasury-payments

45 comments

  1. Killing the US quickly. How in heck do they have authority to stop payments on contracts?

  2. …except for Space X, of course. Crooked fucking scumbag. 

  4. Where is the white house beekeeper when you need him?

  5. Not paying contractors, sound familiar. How long until Trump renames the USA “Trump States of America?” He’ll need to do that before he bankrupts us like he has every other business he’s owned.

  6. A court already issued an injunction against this (two courts in fact, one after the memo was issued, one after it was withdrawn but the administration said they were still doing it).

    Hope the court issues a contempt order.

  7. Just threatening this will affect trust in the “full faith and credit” of the U.S. Even if you want to cut back on gov’t spending, just capriciously stopping payments is a disastrous way to go about it. If there are any sane regulators left they need to stop this lunacy right now.

  8. Donald Trump just handed the treasury department to private citizen Elon Musk. What the actual fuck.

  9. I wonder if that ketamine junkie will stop payments to military contractors… I can’t imagine Triple Canopy or Raytheon would take stop payment orders quite as quietly as others.

  10. He has to be stopped , like right now, cuff him and stuff him

  11. Under what authority? I hope the DNC these contractors have lawyers lined up. It seems the FBI doesn’t care an immigrant has seized control of government accounts

  12. So he is going to ignore a court order and use his illegal access to the US treasury payment system to halt all payments to contractors that do not work for his companies?

    This is gonna destroy the US economy so fast, and this is extremely illegal.

    Where are the US marshals when you need them?

  13. I know him and his coup buddies don’t pay taxes, but do you think this corrupt Treasury nonsense is going to make its way to fucking with tax returns for regular people?

  14. In the article he is specifically going after Lutheran charities and calling them money laundering and a scam. Basically some idiot working for him searched the database of payments for names that contain “Lutheran” and it is tons of money. As someone with a mom in a nursing home with Luther in the title I am hoping they miss it when they close down the social services and retirement homes run by the Lutherans.

  15. Every headline makes me feel like I’m going more insane.

  16. Not paying contractors is consistent with Trump’s lifelong leadership style.

  17. But not to Starlink. This has to be completely illegal.

  18. I can’t believe there is a government entity using the Acronym “DOGE” headed by a cartoonishly evil unhinged billionaire and it’s Now an actual threat to the real world.

    No wonder we all cheered vigilante Justice to the point they scrubbed it from the news cycle in a week

    We’re living in a bad comic book.

  19. How is it possible for a MADE-UP department of ONE PERSON to suddenly yield and exercise SO MUCH POWER with apparently ZERO oversight, checks, or balances?

    Who was it that had the power of the purse again?

  20. This will grind millions of jobs to a halt.

    I feel like a hard stop in government funds is going to piss off all the other moderately rich people.

    I’m kinda hoping this leads to Musk getting what so many of Trumps associates end up getting… Jail time.

    Maybe this brazen attempt to out congress from their job handling the countries finances is one of the last straws.

    Idk trying to find any hope in this incredibly fast happening disaster that also feels like years somehow.

  22. Lockheed, Grumman, and Raytheon are about to sic a fucking Eversor assassin on this man.

  24. This man should be regarded as public enemy #1 by every person in America.

  25. I am once again asking Congress to do their fucking jobs

  26. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but we need the help of the FBI to fight back this challenge to the constitution or else there won’t be much of the functioning government left. I don’t think there is any other physical way to secure our institutions. 

  27. This is insane and it needs to be said every time this is brought up. Elon Musk is not an elected official, nor public employee. “DOGE” is not a government agency; if it exists, it has zero authority to do anything. This is like me just stopping the government from functioning, except I’d be in jail already. This is fucked.

  30. Everyone needs to sit down and read about Curtis Yavin. That are doing exactly what he has espoused. Ignoring the court order is all part of the plan.

  31. > Elon Musk said his “DOGE team” of government efficiency enforcers is shutting down some payments to federal contractors, suggesting that the world’s richest man may have access to sensitive systems used at the US Treasury Department.
    >
    > “The corruption and waste is being rooted out in real-time,” Musk posted on X, saying officials reporting to his so-called Department of Government Efficiency are “rapidly shutting down” payments to a Lutheran charity.
    >
    > The Treasury Department didn’t immediately respond to questions about the extent of Musk’s access. President Donald Trump has put the Tesla CEO — and largest donor to his election effort — in charge of an effort to modernize federal information technology.
    >
    > But Musk seems to be expanding that mandate to include control over financial flows in other parts of the federal government. Top security officials at USAID were placed on leave Saturday after refusing to allow DOGE staffers access to systems at the foreign assistance agency, saying they lacked the required security clearances.
    >
    > Musk on Sunday called USAID “a criminal organization” that should “die.”
    >
    > Musk is targeting systems that process tens of billions of dollars a day in payments for US government agencies and the officials that oversee them. Musk’s statements on Sunday follow last week’s departure of David Lebryk, the Treasury Department’s most senior career official, who had been in charge of payment systems at the Bureau of the Fiscal Service.
    >
    > Trump gave Musk’s efforts his seal of approval Sunday night. “Elon’s doing a good job,” Trump said to reporters.
    >
    > “He’s a big cost cutter,” Trump said. “Sometimes we won’t agree with it and we’ll not go where he wants to go, but I think he’s doing a great job. He’s a smart guy, very smart, and he’s very much into cutting the budget of our federal government.”
    >
    > Senator Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said Friday that he’s been told that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has granted DOGE full access to Treasury’s payment systems.
    >
    > “Social Security and Medicare benefits, grants, payments to government contractors, including those that compete directly with Musk’s own companies,” Wyden said on BlueSky, a social media rival to Musk’s X. “All of it.”
    >
    > Treasury officials have long maintained that its role is to serve as the federal government’s checkbook — and that the decision about whether to approve or deny payment belongs to individual agencies based on funds appropriated by Congress.
    >
    > “The @DOGE team discovered, among other things, that payment approval officers at Treasury were instructed always to approve payments, even to known fraudulent or terrorist groups. They literally never denied a payment in their entire career. Not even once,” Musk wrote on X, without providing evidence.
    >
    > The Treasury has a Do-Not-Pay system in place designed to prevent such payments.
    >
    > Musk said DOGE was shutting down payments by the US Department of Health and Human Services to Lutheran Family Services, a faith-based charity that has been providing social services to refugees. HHS and Lutheran Family Services didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
    >
    > — With assistance from Dana Hull, Alberto Nardelli, and Skylar Woodhouse

  32. How much longer before we put an end to this shit?

  33. Congress needs to act or we are basically done. Trump and Musk are using powers they do not have. It needs to stop. Arrest Elon Musk now

  36. One has to beg the question, what exactly did Elon do before the election to suddenly have this kind of unfettered access.

  37. Halting payments to contractors? Isn’t this a summary of Trump’s entire business history?

  39. Musk is a government pirate.

    This is a crisis that needs extreme interventions.

  40. Remember folks, stealing a $2 chocolate bar from Walmart is a crime, but stealing millions from people who did work for you is just good business.

  41. “DOGE” was sold to Trumpers as two guys who were just going to suggest cuts. Now it’s Musk taking control of government agencies, their budgets, and their data, and installing his own hard drives.

    And the Republican majority Congress is either cheering him on or silently going along with it. The Democrats are impotently outraged.

    And my cynical self is pretty sure that this country is experiencing a coup.

  42. Fuck Elon. He was not voted in. He does not represent the people.

  43. I’m a federal contractor and I’m wondering how long I’m going to have a job for at this point. Fucking lunatic

  44. One of my best friends and his gf voted for Trump. She works at a defense contractor. I guess we’ve reached the point where they find out what the consequences of voting for him are. Only took 2 weeks.

  45. This is a coup. A domestic attack against our government and the public. Seizing power illegally from other branches of government and violating the Constitution.

Comments are closed.