A top ranking official in the U.S. Department of the Treasury is resigning after a fight with Elon Musk over a sensitive payment system.
The Washington Post reports that David Lebryk, who has worked in the department for decades and is its longest serving career official, will depart soon, after conflicting with Musk’s deputies over access to the government’s payment system used to distribute trillions of dollars every year. Until Scott Bessent’s confirmation as treasury secretary on Monday, Lebryk served as acting head of the department.
Musk’s people at his “Department of Government Efficiency” have sought access to the system since the election, the Post reports, and their requests continued after Donald Trump’s inauguration. However, the treasury’s payment systems have usually only been accessed by a small number of career officials.
The Bureau of Fiscal Service operates the systems, controlling $6 trillion of money disbursement around the country. Tens, and possibly hundreds, of millions of people rely on the systems, which distribute Social Security and Medicare benefits, federal salaries, payments to government contractors, grants, and tax refunds, as well as thousands of other things.
Lebryk joined the department in 1989 as an intern, and has worked for three decades under 11 different treasury secretaries. His departure at this time doesn’t bode well, especially since he served in the previous Trump administration, and was praised by Trump’s current deputy treasury secretary, Michael Faulkender, in 2023.
“I could not, to this day, tell you his politics,” said Faulkender, who worked with Lebryk in sending out stimulus payments during the Covid-19 pandemic, an effort Lebryk led. “He always seemed to be relaxed and under control.”
It appears that Musk, while upending the lives of federal workers, is now causing chaos with the U.S. government’s money flow. If federal officials who have served for decades under different presidents, including Trump, see a need to quit, that’s not a good sign for the country.
The post Top Official to Quit as Musk Tries to Get Hands on Key Payment System appeared first on New Republic.
