Elon Musk’s much-touted new website for the Department of Government Efficiency posted classified government information, setting off alarm bells in the intelligence community.
The website, which launched Wednesday, publishes federal personnel data, including employee headcounts and budget details.
Although a note at the bottom of the site says that its workforce data exclude information about certain agencies—military and intelligence organizations, for instance—HuffPost reported that classified employment data is, in fact, visible.
The site published data about the National Reconnaissance Office, the federal intelligence agency that builds and launches U.S. surveillance satellites, HuffPost reported. The NRO’s budget and headcount are classified but continue to be accessible on the site as of this article’s publication.
“DOGE just posted secret NOFURN [not releasable to foreign nationals] info on their website about [intelligence community] headcount, so currently people are scrambling to check if their info has been accessed,” an unnamed Defense Intelligence Agency official told HuffPost.
The NRO appears to be the only one of the 18 intelligence agencies with data visible on the site.
Given that Musk’s company, SpaceX, has a $1.8 billion contract with the agency, the tech billionaire should be more aware of its role and the need to keep its data under wraps.
Two Senate aides who work on intelligence issues confirmed to HuffPost that the NRO’s personnel data is classified but mentioned that there is debate in the intelligence community about whether it needs to be.
Nevertheless, the fact that DOGE shared this information “is absolutely a problem under the current intelligence standards,” one of the aides said.
The breach highlights concerns lawmakers have raised about DOGE’s staff.
“These 25-year-old programmers, I don’t think they have enough experience to know what they don’t know,” one aide said. “Really, the question is: Where did this get this information, and what are they doing with it?”
A spokesperson for the NRO redirected HuffPost to DOGE when the outlet requested comment on the situation, saying: “We defer to the Department of Government Efficiency for comment on the release of information posted on DOGE.gov.”
The White House did not immediately respond to either HuffPost or the Daily Beast’s requests for comment.
This is not only the controversy raised by DOGE’s new site, which Musk has said is part of an effort to boost transparency as he and his team try to reshape the federal bureaucracy.
Earlier on Friday, hackers accessed the site and posted prank messages that read: “This is a joke of a .gov site” and “THESE ‘EXPERTS’ LEFT THEIR DATABASE OPEN -roro.”
