On Friday, the Department of Energy, the agency responsible for securing the country’s nuclear secrets, tried to explain why one of Elon Musk’s employees, who worked on DOGE, was granted access to its IT systems despite objections from the department’s legal and cybersecurity teams.
According to CNN, Luke Farritor, 23, who previously interned at Musk’s company SpaceX, was given access by Energy Secretary Chris Wright on Wednesday. Both the department’s legal counsel and its IT and cybersecurity teams raised concerns, as Farritor hadn’t gone through the usual background check process.
“He’s not cleared to be in DOE, on our systems. None of those things have been done,” said an unnamed source.
Although Farritor was only given access to basic IT systems, such as email and Microsoft 365, the situation raised alarms due to the Department of Energy’s critical role in managing the country’s nuclear weapons and overseeing energy policy.
In response to the backlash, Secretary Wright attempted to calm fears by denying that Farritor or anyone connected to DOGE had access to nuclear secrets.
“I’ve heard these rumors. They’re like seeing our nuclear secrets. None of that is true at all,” Wright said during an interview with CNBC’s Brian Sullivan on Friday.
However, there have been concerns about the level of access granted to Musk’s team members. For example, one of his software engineers, Marko Elez, had administrator rights to some of the country’s most important payment systems, which control trillions of dollars. This allowed him to modify key code, even though Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had claimed Elez only had “read-only” access. Elez resigned this week after controversial posts on social media, though reports suggest he may be rehired. Additionally, a U.S. district court has recently restricted DOGE’s access to government agencies.
Currently, DOGE’s actions appear to be stretching or possibly violating federal laws regarding government positions and authority that are supposed to be regulated by Congress. With federal law enforcement facing pressure from the president, the courts are the main check against Musk and Trump’s influence on the federal government.
