Okay, But Why Do Billionaires Have Our Data?

Since January, Americans have had serious concerns about Elon Musk’s DOGE (the “Department of Government Efficiency”) and the privacy of our personal data. 

The government used to have careful guardrails in place to protect our information. Only certain people, after careful background checks, were given access. But DOGE was given unprecedented access to all of our data, across departments and agencies. And because Trump fast-tracked DOGE with an executive order, employees didn’t have to go through the same background checks and screenings. Many were teenagers, including the now infamous 19-year-old hacker whose online name is (sigh) “Big Balls.”

Okay, but Elon is gone now. So does that mean DOGE is over? 

Unfortunately, no. DOGE was never an official government agency (it just hijacked the existing US Digital Service), and Elon Musk was never officially in charge of it, so even without Elon, the work continues. A former DOGE employee is now the chief of staff at the Department of Energy, for example, and two former DOGE members are now senior officials at the Environmental Protection Agency. “Big Balls” himself is now working at the Social Security Administration.

Meanwhile, Peter Thiel—another billionaire and the founder of the tech company Palantir—has been working to build a massive, government-run database of Americans. The goal is a one-stop shop with all of our information, from tax returns to medical records, all in the same place. You know, exactly the thing the government has always known not to do.

Privacy used to be nonpartisan. Back in the 1970s, Republican Senator Charles Percy said, “I hope that we never see the day when a bureaucrat in Washington can use his organization's computer facilities to assemble a complete dossier of all known information about an individual.” Even in the past few years, data privacy has been an issue that transcends political parties.

So reach out to your representatives, no matter where you live, to let them know that you don’t want billionaires to have your data. And if all of this feels too overwhelming, try getting involved in your local community. We might not be able to do much about what’s happening with our information, but we can make things better for our neighbors.

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Transcript

Okay, But Why Do Billionaires Have Our Data?

CLIP: Kara Swisher: “What does the government want with our data? You know, it depends on the government. If it’s a democratic government, it’ll probably be used to sell you stuff. Probably it’s to use it for AI training and things like that, which helps these businesses. Because most of AI is being done privately, so they want this data. They want this data to train on, they want to be able to sell to the American people.
So that’s the best-case scenario, that we get inundated with this kind of crap. The worst case scenario is a Chinese surveillance country, an authoritarian country that follows and tracks us. There’s enormous amounts of data and using AI, you really can track everybody in a way that is really profound.” 

Narration: Americans are worried about the privacy of our personal information. We’re worried about social media companies (less than 1 in 5 Americans feel like Facebook protects their privacy) and we’re worried about the government collecting our data too. But as more billionaires are given powerful roles and expensive contracts with the government, they’re accessing and sharing our information back and forth, making the privacy problem even worse. 

So why do billionaires have so much of our data? And why isn’t the government protecting us?

In particular, there have been serious concerns about Elon Musk’s DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency, and how their employees are using our information. But the government has always had access to a lot of our information, so what’s different about DOGE?

The government has always maintained records of some of your basic information like your name, birthday, and Social Security number, and it also has a record of any time you’ve interacted with the government, like when you file your taxes, receive assistance for food or housing, apply for Medicare or a student loan, or vote. (Don’t worry, they don’t know who you vote for – just whether or not you did, and in some places, the party that you’re registered with.) That data helps them decide who’s eligible for benefits, who hasn’t paid their taxes, and make sure programs are working the way they’re supposed to.

But in the past, the government had guardrails to protect our information. Only certain people, after thorough background checks, could access our data. And even then, it was on a “need to know” basis. Someone from the student loan office couldn’t see your Medicare application just because they were curious. And every time someone did access your data, it was carefully recorded.

DOGE, on the other hand, got unprecedented access to all of our data, across departments and agencies. And because it was never an official government department, DOGE employees didn’t have to go through the same background checks and screenings. Many were teenagers, including a 19-year-old hacker whose online name is “Big Balls.” Do you feel like your personal data is safe in the hands of someone named Big Balls? 

We know that DOGE employees gained access to payment systems that process trillions of dollars in government transactions – and at least one employee had edit access as well, meaning that they could both see and change the data. In April, a whistleblower at the National Labor Board reported that DOGE employees were making copies of sensitive information about unions, ongoing legal cases and corporate secrets. Elon Musk may have even gotten access to information about who at his own companies, like Tesla and SpaceX, has lodged complaints with the Labor Board.

And for all of that, it isn’t clear that DOGE actually saved us money. Since January, Elon’s cost-saving target dropped from $2 trillion to $1 trillion, then down to $150 billion. DOGE’s website claims it’s saved $180 billion, but experts – and honestly, regular people who can do math – have pointed out so many errors in their calculations. DOGE has publicly confused “billion” and “million,” double-counted the same contracts, and claimed credit for axing programs that had already been cancelled long ago.

But hey, Elon is gone now, right? Doesn’t that mean that DOGE is over? 

Unfortunately, no. DOGE was never an official government agency or department, and Elon Musk was never officially in charge of it, so even without Elon, the work continues. Russell Vought, the head of Management and Budget and one of the authors of Project 2025–

CLIP: Russell Vought: “We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected. We want to put them in trauma.”

Narration: – yep, that Russell Vought – has testified that DOGE will become more “institutionalized” now that Elon Musk is gone. A former DOGE employee is now the chief of staff at the Department of Energy, for example, and two former DOGE members are now senior officials at the Environmental Protection Agency. And at the Social Security Administration, two former members of DOGE are now serving as co-chief information officers.

Meanwhile, Peter Thiel, another billionaire and the founder of the tech company Palantir, has been working to build a massive, government-run database of Americans… a one-stop shop with all of our information, from tax returns to medical records, all in the same place. You know, exactly the thing the government has always known not to do. In fact, there’s a law about it – the 1974 Privacy Act. Palantir has already been criticized for developing AI tools for the military and mass surveillance for ICE.

In the chilling words of historian Robert Reich, if you draw a circle around all of the people and money in the US devoted to AI, and a second circle around the military, and a third circle around who is collecting all of our personal information, and a fourth circle around around the tech bros in Silicon Valley who are trying to turn the US away from democracy, those four circles intersect around one corporation and one man: Palantir and Peter Thiel.

Thiel is the founder, not the current CEO – but the man who is the CEO, Alex Karp, is fully on board. He’s the highest paid CEO in the country, paid 6.8 billion dollars last year, and here’s what he had to say at a recent shareholder meeting.

CLIP: Alex Karp: “Palantir is here to disrupt and make sure the institutions we partner with are the very best in the world, and when it’s necessary, scare our enemies and on occasion, kill them.”

Narrator: In September, Palantir is scheduled to release a new system called the Immigration Lifecycle Operating System, or ImmigrationOS, which tracks people based on geolocation devices and biometric data like voice patterns and facial recognition. They say it’s only supposed to be used for undocumented immigrants, but ICE has already made numerous mistakes like arresting American citizens - and that was before they had AI tracking our voice patterns. And this kind of extremely personal, sensitive data would be an absolute goldmine for hackers. Given the security concerns about how DOGE mishandled our data, why would we believe that Palantir would do any better?

As a side note, the word “Palantir” refers to basically a crystal ball from The Lord of the Rings. It was used to present selective visions of reality to whoever was gazing into it, and it was used by Sauron, the big bad guy of the whole series, to manipulate other characters into war. It’s more than a little concerning that Peter Thiel thought this was a great name for his AI surveillance company.

Privacy used to be nonpartisan. Back when the Privacy Act was passed in the 1970s, Republican Senator Barry Goldwater worried about the possibility that “every detail of our personal lives can be assembled instantly for use by a single bureaucrat or institution." And Republican Senator Charles Percy said, “I hope that we never see the day when a bureaucrat in Washington can use his organization's computer facilities to assemble a complete dossier of all known information about an individual.”

Even in the past few years, data privacy has been an issue that transcends political parties. In 2022, a bipartisan bill called the American Data Privacy and Protection Act was introduced, and in 2024, there was a similar bill called the American Privacy Rights Act. Neither bill ever made it to a vote in the House of Representatives.

So reach out to your representatives, no matter where you live, to let them know that you don’t want billionaires to have your data. And if you’re feeling overwhelmed about what’s happening on the federal level, try getting involved in your local community. We might not be able to do much about what’s happening with our information, but we can make things better for our neighbors.

Sources

https://ash.harvard.edu/resources/understanding-doge-and-your-data/

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/24/doge-big-balls-edward-coristine-resigns

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jun/30/peter-thiel-palantir-threat-to-americans

https://www.npr.org/2025/04/15/nx-s1-5355896/doge-nlrb-elon-musk-spacex-security

https://english.elpais.com/usa/2025-04-25/immigrationos-by-palantir-trumps-new-tool-to-completely-monitor-immigrants-lives.html

https://www.npr.org/2025/05/01/nx-s1-5372776/palantir-tech-contracts-trump

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/07/us/politics/trump-musk-doge-interior-epa.html?unlocked_article_code=1.VU8.lq_-.eUmdCzxIlzEf&smid=url-share

https://www.npr.org/2025/06/11/nx-s1-5429638/what-is-the-status-of-doge-now-that-elon-musk-is-gone

https://www.hipaajournal.com/republicans-form-working-group-to-develop-federal-data-privacy-law/

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/09/us/politics/trump-musk-data-access.html

https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-privacy-act-of-1974-was-designed-to-protect-us-from-elon-musk-and-doge/