- A 25-year-old DOGE staffer violated Treasury policy by emailing a spreadsheet containing unencrypted personal data to two Trump administration officials. The email was sent by Marko Elez, who later resigned after being linked to a social media account that shared racist posts.
A 25-year-old DOGE staffer violated Treasury policies by emailing a spreadsheet containing personal information to two other members of the Trump administration.
In a court filing, a federal official revealed that Marko Elez sent the sensitive information unencrypted and without prior approval, which violated the Bureau of the Fiscal Service’s policies on handling sensitive information.
The spreadsheet, which was sent to two United States General Services Administration officials, contained some personally identifiable information (PII), but it was considered “low-risk PII because the names are not accompanied by more specific identifiers, such as social security numbers or birth dates,” David Ambrose, the chief privacy officer for the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, said in the filing.
The email was discovered during a forensic analysis of Elez’s email account and laptop carried out when the staffer resigned from his post in early February after being linked to a racist social media account.
Musk, Vice President JD Vance, and President Donald Trump all came to the staffer’s defense after the account was revealed by the Wall Street Journal and Elez has since been reinstated in his DOGE role at the Social Security Administration. Elez is one of 10 DOGE workers at the social insurance agency.
The United States Department of the Treasury did not immediately respond to a request for more information from Fortune. The request was sent outside normal working hours.
Legal action against DOGE
The filing is part of an ongoing lawsuit brought by New York and other state attorneys general that challenges DOGE’s access to government databases.
In early February, 19 state attorneys general sued the Treasury Department, accusing the president of neglecting his duty to uphold the nation’s laws by allowing DOGE to access federal computer systems. The suit successfully blocked the team from accessing the personal financial data of millions of Americans in Treasury Department records.
Last month, a separate filing revealed that Elez was “mistakenly” given read-and-write access to Treasury systems during his tenure in the department. Despite him having edit privileges, the new filing confirmed, Elez did not make any alterations or changes to department payment systems.
Democrats and privacy advocates have opposed DOGE’s access to databases containing financial records, Social Security beneficiary information, and other personal data.
Their role has been loosely defined as identifying inefficiencies and potential fraud in government programs, but critics argue they lack the necessary training to handle classified or sensitive personal information properly.
The team, which was assembled as part of the Trump administration’s government efficiency initiative, appears to be partially staffed by young software engineers with little to no government experience.
The new filing raises concerns about the data security practices employed by the team as it accesses sensitive government databases in the Treasury Department and beyond.
