The Treasury Department installed an ally of Elon Musk in a key position overseeing the nation’s payment system, replacing a career civil servant who had resisted granting Mr. Musk’s cost-cutting team access to payments data.
Tom Krause, a Silicon Valley software executive, is now the Treasury’s fiscal assistant secretary, according to the department’s website. He takes over from Dave Lebryk, who was pushed out of his job last month after he refused to give Mr. Krause access to the sensitive payments system. Treasury’s system disburses funds on behalf of the entire federal government and includes Americans’ personal information, like bank account numbers.
Mr. Krause’s access into the payment system has been the subject of a lawsuit and inquiries from Democrats on Capitol Hill. Treasury has said that a team led by Mr. Krause has “read-only” access to the code to conduct an efficiency review, denying that it intends to use the system to block payments authorized by Congress. The New York Times reported on Thursday that Treasury staff members had initially sought to give Mr. Krause access to the system so he could help pause payments.
A judge issued a temporary restraining order on Thursday allowing “read-only” access to the system to Mr. Krause and Marko Elez, a former SpaceX and X employee who resigned from Treasury on Thursday after The Wall Street Journal connected him to racist social media posts.
Democrats, whose minority status in Congress means they cannot compel a response to their inquiries, have pushed for more information about what kind of access Mr. Krause and Mr. Elez have to the Treasury payments system. Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, sent a letter to the Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, on Friday with several additional questions about the situation.
“I demand that you immediately clarify the terms under which Musk, Krause and other individuals currently or previously affiliated with DOGE can or did access Treasury Department payment systems and clarify whether they seek this access to unlawfully freeze payment instructions given by Congress,” Mr. Wyden wrote.
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