Trump says Musk cannot stop Treasury payments on his own

By Jenny Leonard and Gregory Korte

President Donald Trump said Elon Musk has access to Treasury systems that allow him to monitor federal spending before payments are made, but that the world’s richest man does not have the power to stop payments himself without approval.

Trump said Monday that Musk can flag potential problems with federal spending, and has found “tremendous waste.” But he insisted that Musk cannot unilaterally stop the payments.

“Elon can’t do and won’t do anything without our approval,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “If there was something that didn’t have my OK, I’d let you know about it really fast,” he added.

Musk, whom Trump has tapped to run an office within the White House called the Department of Government Efficiency, received access to Treasury payment systems after the top career official in charge of them, David Lebryk, resigned last week. Those systems include sensitive information on taxpayers, employees, beneficiaries and contractors.

The White House also confirmed Monday that Musk is what’s known as an SGE, or special government employee. An SGE is an officer or employee in the executive branch of the federal government who typically serves for a limited period of time. The executive order creating DOGE noted that its work should terminate on July 4, 2026.

“Elon Musk is selflessly serving President Trump’s Administration as a special government employee, and he has abided by all applicable federal laws,” said spokesperson Karoline Leavitt in a statement.

Musk is subject to conflicts of interest laws but doesn’t have to publicly release financial disclosures nor divest his holdings. The enforcement of any conflicts of interest rests with the person he reports up to —Trump’s chief of staff Susie Wiles.

Musk posted on social media over the weekend that “corruption and waste is being rooted out in real-time” and that his DOGE teams were “rapidly shutting down” improper payments.

Critics have said the role is a conflict of interest for Musk, who runs several companies including Tesla Inc. and SpaceX, which have contracts with the federal government and have benefited from other government programs.

“Where we think there’s a conflict or there’s a problem, we won’t let him go near it. But he has some very good ideas,” Trump said.

Musk is subject to conflict of interest rules, but those are largely enforced by White House officials.

Treasury officials have long maintained that the payment system’s role is to serve as the federal government’s checkbook — and that the decision about whether to approve or deny payments belongs to individual agencies based on funds appropriated by Congress.