Emily Badger

1 week ago | nytimes.com | Emily Badger

His team found cases of seemingly fake people receiving unemployment benefits. But that fake data exists for a reason. Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency announced this week that they had found something especially startling in their government-wide hunt for fraud: tens of thousands of people claiming unemployment benefits who were over age 115, under age 5 or with birth dates in the future.

2 weeks ago | virginislandsdailynews.com | Emily Badger

The federal government knows your mother’s maiden name and your bank account number. The student debt you hold. Your disability status. The company that employs you and the wages you earn there. And that’s just a start. These intimate details about the personal lives of people who live in the United States are held in disconnected data systems across the federal government — some at the Treasury, some at the Social Security Administration and some at the Department of Education, among other agencies.

2 weeks ago | rsn.org | Emily Badger |Sheera Frenkel

Elon Musk’s team is leading an effort to link government databases, to the alarm of privacy and security experts. The federal government knows your mother’s maiden name and your bank account number. The student debt you hold. Your disability status. The company that employs you and the wages you earn there. And that’s just a start.

2 weeks ago | nytimes.com | Emily Badger |Sheera Frenkel

Databases that Elon Musk's team is trying to access include more than 300 personal details about members of the U.S. public. The federal government knows your mother's maiden name and your bank account number. The student debt you hold. Your disability status. The company that employs you and the wages you earn there. And that's just a start.

1 month ago | businessandamerica.com | Ethan Singer |Emily Badger

Elon Musk’s cost-cutting team debuted a website last month cataloging the contracts the group says it has canceled to save taxpayers money. Since then, the list has undergone dizzying changes. New contracts have been added, others deleted. Values have been altered, and altered again. The changes tell a story of how the Musk team, known as the Department of Government Efficiency, operates.