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WIREDFebruary 4, 2025 at 1:02 AM EST

EXCLUSIVE: The Bureau of the Fiscal Service is a sleepy part of the Treasury Department. It’s also where, sources say, a 25-year-old engineer tied to Elon Musk has admin privileges over the code that controls Social Security payments, tax returns, and more.

Two of those sources say that Elez’s privileges include the ability not just to read but to write code on two of the most sensitive systems in the US government: The Payment Automation Manager (PAM) and Secure Payment System (SPS) at the Bureau of the Fiscal Service (BFS).

“You could do anything with these privileges,” says one source with knowledge of the system, who adds that they cannot conceive of a reason that anyone would need them for purposes of simply hunting down fraudulent payments or analyzing disbursement flow.

In case you missed it, here's a WIRED exclusive on the engineers, between 19 and 24 years old, aiding Elon Musk's government takeover.