Musk's DOGE gains access to Medicare, eyes FAA

What happened

Members of Elon Musk's secretive "Department of Government Efficiency" have been granted access to "systems and technology" at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the agency said Wednesday, after The Wall Street Journal reported that DOGE had "gotten access to key payment and contracting systems." Musk and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy also said DOGE had agreed to "upgrade" the Federal Aviation Administration's air traffic control system.

Thousands of people gathered in cities and outside capitols across the U.S. Wednesday to protest Musk's rapid takeover of the federal government and President Donald Trump's early flurry of executive orders.

Who said what

DOGE is "going to plug in to help upgrade our aviation system," Duffy said on X. Musk replied that his team would "aim to make rapid safety upgrades to the air traffic control system." The details were "murky" on what role DOGE would play, Politico said, or which "upgrades" they would attempt on the aging and "complex web of software, hardware, facilities and people that keep planes from crashing into each other."

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CMS is a "highly politically and economically sensitive agency," the "nerve center of much of the nation's complex health care economy," the Journal said. But a person familiar with DOGE's work at the agency said its access was "read only" and "that, to their knowledge, Musk’s allies hadn’t yet been given access to databases that include identifiable personal health information of Medicare or Medicaid enrollees." DOGE operatives met with the Labor Department Wednesday, "seeking access to sensitive data," The Washington Post said.

What next?

Musk's efforts are "part of a massive government restructuring by Trump, who has fired and sidelined hundreds of civil servants in his first steps toward downsizing the bureaucracy and installing more loyalists," Reuters said. "Multiple government officials have already privately warned" that some DOGE actions "appear to be illegal," the Post said. But "critics have struggled to keep up" with the onslaught and "the Republicans who control Congress have largely applauded its work" and dismissed Democrats' "protests that an unelected billionaire should not be able to dismantle the bureaucracy without lawmakers' consent."