Washington DC—A handful of Federal employees demonstrated against billionaire Elon Musk’s takeover of the top Federal government administrative building on Saturday afternoon. They said their protest was spurred by the unauthorized breach of their data and financial information by surrogates working for Elon Musk. The operatives locked authorized Federal workers out of access to their computer systems and forced access to the government computer systems. The surrogates are associated with the billionaire’s corporations and are in his closest corporate circle.
Federal employees chanted, “ Hands off our data, hands off our money!”, “Six Trillion, you can’t have it!” and “No body voted for Elon Musk!” Meanwhile, five floors above them lights remained lit on the Saturday afternoon while several unidentified persons watched the protesters from the windows above.
The few employees said it was self-evident that the billionaire was the master planner orchestrating the actions inside the Theodore Rosevelt administration Office of Personnel Management (OPM). His actions were not close to resembling anything like the orderly and traditional transfer of government power from one elected executive to the next. The activities inside the OPM resembled an administrative coup of government operations they said.
Their signs read, “Democracy not Oligarchy, “ Save OPM,” “Hostile Takeover,” and “Democracy Died in Complacency.” The signs are references to Musk’s actions at OPM.
The Federal employees, who wished not to be identified, expressed anger and frustration that the stunning breach of security of computer information was authorized by Trump. The employees were themselves required to undergo extensive background investigations and be thoroughly credentialed before gaining access to even the most basic information systems. Such investigations and credentialing requirements take months to complete before access is approved with requirements for periodic additional credentialing.
The OPM building is located in a sleepy Federal office building zone in Northwest Washington DC at 1900 E. Street NW, and has rarely, if ever seen protests, at least by its own public servants.
According to published report by Reuters and widely reported elsewhere in major news websites, as well as reports circulating generally among Federal members’ offices, Musk’s associates were not granted official government credentials and had not been issued the typical government identification badges and security access permissions connecting them to access of OPM. They bypassed all layers of security at the OPM office spaces and connected external computer drives to the entire trove of government employee information. They set up couches and worked around the clock to access data without oversight. This data includes but is not limited to email accounts, personal identification information (PII), financial records, evaluations, work history, retirement data, and assessment reports.
A published report established that the same type of activity was unfolding elsewhere in Federal government departments, including at the U.S. Treasury, where yet other surrogates of Elon Musk had also gained access to the central money disbursement accounts. Such accounts are managed at the highest levels of government security and control the payment of $6 trillion annually in Social Security, Medicare, Federal worker pay, IRS tax refunds, and government contracts. The accounts are the working spigot of Congressionally authorized disbursements.
David Lebryk, the top Treasury career manager responsible for access to the accounts, reportedly clashed with Elon Musk’s operatives as he tried to stop their breach of U.S. Treasury accounts but he was escorted out of his office and his access was revoked.
There remains a question as to whether or not the president has the constitutional authority to take any role in the U.S. Treasury account operation or seize access to the account, lock out the designated manager, and delegate authority to an unelected external third party.
The OPM building itself stands as the central hub of Federal Government administrative operations and houses a vast computer array and links to the most sensitive PII data of millions of Federal employees, both past and present.
Up to this moment, the OPM has been the most continuously stable pilar of government operations; not subject to the periodic transition of personnel as occurs in the changeover of elected branches of governance—the Executive, Legislature, and High Court. All the practical operations of government and the authority at OPM is delegated by Congress and put into operation at the OPM. But the stability of this pilar is being shaken at its foundation as PII access and control points are breached by the billionaire’s surrogates.
It is questionable as to the constitutionality of said actions and as to whether or not the Executive branch has been vested the authority to wrestle control of and take over the administrative arm of the government and then delegate control to an unelected third party, Elon Musk.
The Federal employees told of how earlier in the week they were confused and later angry after they received a suspicious series of email from an account identified as the official OPM. The email was sent to every Federal employee with the subject line, “Fork in the Road,” and spurred a government human resource crisis. It offered to cancel their return to regular work offices with 8 months pay and benefits under the condition they reply with one word “Resign,” to end their employment. It was part of certain reductions in force (RIF) slated to come later on under a plan to reduce the Federal service workforce by 80%. The email did not tell when the RIFs would occur, but vaguely implied they could be given 8 months of pay and vacation but they must respond to the message with a one word “resign” not later than February 6. Legal analysts said the agreement was not legally binding and employees would be tricked and trapped if they took the deal.
The suspicious nature of the email created instant chaos in the minutes after it was sent as managers in agencies across the government scrambled to determine if it was legitimate. OPM had not previously issued such a vague and sweeping notice directly to its public servants.
An email titled “Fork in the road,” was a mimic of a previously sent email from Elon Musk to Twitter employees in November 2022 after he purchased the media platform and then terminated most of the twitter workforce. They were also asked to take a severance offer; were not paid as promised after they took the offer; and were then later forced to seek payment in court.
In a speech before Congress, Senator Tim Cain (D-VA) said Federal employees should ignore the email offer from Musk and called it bogus and urged non-compliance.
Federal workers vowed to return to protest again on Sunday.
