Sam Sabin
Silicon Valley's speed-over-safety mindset is colliding with Washington's reality that messing with government IT can open the door for China, Russia, and other adversaries to infiltrate critical U.S. systems.
Why it matters: On-the-fly overhauls of government IT systems are putting Americans at risk, lawmakers and former officials tell Axios.
Driving the news: Media reports continue to emerge that suggest the employees on Musk's team are unqualified and can become national security vulnerabilities themselves.Wired reported that one member has connections to a Telegram-based cyberattack-for-hire service. That same person was also fired from a cybersecurity internship for disclosing company secrets to a competitor, Bloomberg reported Friday.
State of play: DOGE has reportedly either already gained access or is eyeing access to sensitive federal systems, including those handling Social Security, Medicare, and national infrastructure. Agencies affected include the Treasury Department, Energy Department and the Office of Personnel Management — and others that handle classified and highly sensitive data.DOGE is also reportedly building a custom chatbot called GSAi for the U.S. General Services Administration that would analyze procurement documents and government contracts, per Wired.
Some reports say a DOGE staffer has at one point used personal Gmail accounts to access government meetings and AI tools hosted on commercial cloud services.
Between the lines: Government agencies move cautiously on IT for a reason: one mistake can cost lives, said Jake Braun, a former White House deputy national cyber director."If you're creating a dating app, you can move fast and break things," Braun said. "If you have a badge, a gun, nuclear weapons and things like that, maybe moving fast and breaking things isn't the most prudent approach."
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