A DOGE employee working for Elon Musk found himself in a standoff with the Secret Service on the roof of the Eisenhower Executive Building while scouting locations for installing Starlink, The New York Times reports.
Starlink, the satellite internet service owned by Musk’s SpaceX, is now accessible across the White House complex after it was “donated” to the U.S government by the MAGA billionaire, according to the Times.
But the service, which beams internet signals to the user from low-orbiting SpaceX satellites, needed a physical terminal installed before it could be used at the complex, which processes its Wi-Fi and other data at a center miles away.
In February, Chris Stanley, an X and SpaceX security engineer who now works as a special employee for the Department of Government Efficiency, was tasked by Musk with installing Starlink terminals on the roof of the Eisenhower Executive Building in the White House complex, the Times reported.
But as he made his way to the roof of the building, which is adjacent to the White House itself, Stanley tripped a silent alarm that alerted the Secret Service to his presence. What the Times described as a “dramatic scene” soon unfolded as an agent rushed to respond.
The White House later attempted to downplay the incident, with spokesman Harrison Fields telling the Times that the government “was aware of DOGE’s intentions to improve internet access on the campus” and that it “did not consider this matter a security incident or security breach.”
Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi also corroborated this version of events and said the incident was not being considered a breach of security.
Starlink is generally considered to provide good-quality internet service and was added to the list of government-approved apps federal employees can download to their phones shortly after Trump took office.
But questions have been asked why the service, which is typically used to provide internet services to war zones and other remote and impoverished locations, is needed at the heart of the U.S. government.
Jake Williams, vice president for research and development at cybersecurity consultancy firm Hunter Strategy, told the Times it is “super rare” for the U.S government to allow a third-party to replace existing infrastructure that was already been vetted and secured.
“I can’t think of a time that I have heard of that,” he said.
“It introduces another attack point,” Williams added. “But why introduce that risk?”
Typically, technology cannot be simply donated to the U.S. government, and any such attempt would have to be vetted by the White House’s chief information officer at the General Services Administration.
But the service has reportedly already been adopted by the General Services Administration, which currently serves as a hub for DOGE as it fires thousands of federal workers, according to reports.
Secret Service spokesman Guglielmi told the Times that his agency had been “collaborating closely with” DOGE in recent months but said “no formal changes have been made to the White House visitor access system” at this time.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.
