WASHINGTON — Elon Musk’s surrogates at the Department of Government Efficiency may have been at the Department of Veterans Affairs’ headquarters in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, a key Democratic senator said, raising concerns about their access to the private records of both veterans and agency employees.
“We should all be deeply concerned about what it could mean to give Elon Musk and his cronies free rein at VA—I am already hearing that DOGE may have barged into VA today,” Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said in a statement.
“Musk and his associates already have the personal financial information of every veteran receiving disability or education benefits because of their illegal data mining at the Department of Treasury,” she said. “Will they now look at private health records of veterans? What else will they do that could put the health and safety of our veterans at risk?”
The apparent visit comes just days after Musk’s team reportedly accessed millions of people’s personal and financial information at the Office of Personnel Management and separately at the Treasury Department.
It’s not clear if Musk himself may have been at the VA or just members of his team. A VA spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
DOGE, which Trump designated as a replacement for the U.S. Digital Service, is focused on cutting costs across the federal government, but so far has been moving recklessly, politically and possibly illegally. Musk claims it is on a mission to root out fraud and shrink the deficit.
Lawsuits have been flying this week after President Donald Trump’s administration granted Musk and his surrogates access to huge amounts of personal information in governmental databases. Musk, the world’s richest man, is operating as a “special government employee,” a designation allowing him to work for 130 days without being subject to certain ethics and disclosure rules.
On Monday, a coalition of union groups sued the Treasury Department and Secretary Scott Bessent for giving Musk and his team “full access” to the federal government’s payment systems. These systems include the personal data of millions of people, including names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, birth places, home addresses, phone numbers, email addresses and bank account information.
That lawsuit came days after federal employees at the Office of Personnel Management sued the government for allowing Musk to install a private server at the agency and access sensitive records without being vetted or approved. OPM’s systems include personal records for tens of millions of current and former federal workers,
There are plenty of reasons to worry about Musk’s team potentially accessing the VA’s private health care data. They could, for example, access data about veterans who are on birth control, for example, or who have had abortions.
Murray said she voted against confirming VA Secretary nominee Doug Collins on Tuesday specifically because she hasn’t seen any of Trump’s cabinet picks, including Collins, stand up to the president’s “illegal power grab” — her term for referring to Musk’s activities, including his efforts to purge the federal government of career civil servants.
“If this administration continues to press VA doctors, nurses, and support staff to resign—will Collins push back?” the Democratic senator asked. “I cannot confidently say he would.”