By Felix Montoya, Chester Delacroix, Vera McIntyre, and Hank Malone
Somewhere deep in the bowels of Washington, an exhausted government worker is staring at a locked computer screen, gripping a cup of lukewarm coffee, and wondering how in the unholy fuck Elon Musk just stole the U.S. Treasury. Not figuratively — literally. The richest man in the world just made a play for the government’s entire payment system. Six trillion dollars a year. Social Security, Medicare, tax refunds, federal salaries — all of it. And no one seems willing to tackle him before he starts pawning off the furniture and selling the IRS to Twitter Blue subscribers.
David Lebryk, the last sane man in the Treasury, took one look at the situation and ran. Three decades in government, moving money for presidents of both parties, and this was the thing that finally broke him—not economic collapse, not a national crisis, but a billionaire frat boy demanding the keys to the nation’s checkbook like a drunk at closing time. He wasn’t just some mid-level bean counter, either — Trump made him acting Treasury Secretary while waiting for his official pick to get confirmed. But when Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) started foaming at the mouth for access to federal payments, Lebryk opted out of reality.
And he was right to run.
Because the Department of Government Efficiency isn’t a real department — it’s a fake agency, slapped together with spit and lies, so Trump could give Musk something to play with while the adults handled actual governance. But that’s the problem — there are no adults anymore. Musk was supposed to cut waste and fraud. Instead, he’s operating like a cyberpunk supervillain, replacing civil servants with tech bros who think democracy is a software update away from being obsolete.
Now they want direct access to the system that moves every dollar the federal government spends, from grandma’s Social Security check to military contractors’ billion-dollar payouts. Why? No one knows. Maybe Musk just wants to “optimize” things, maybe he wants to funnel everything through his decaying hellscape of a social media platform. Maybe he just gets off on breaking things. Whatever the reason, it’s happening, and the people in charge seem powerless to stop it.
The red flags are everywhere. Musk already locked government employees out of their own computers. His goons are sending resignation emails to career workers like it’s 2022 and they just got bought out by Twitter. The government’s entire workforce is being treated like disposable gig workers, while Musk walks around like a Silicon Valley warlord, issuing decrees, firing people, and kicking open doors that were supposed to be bolted shut.
Even the White House is starting to panic. But it’s too late. Musk isn’t just another billionaire with a seat at the table — he owns the goddamn table now. The President himself doesn’t have leverage over him, and Musk, in his infinite narcissism, doesn’t give a single, solitary fuck about rules.
What happens if he gets his hands on the Treasury’s payment system? Picture this:
Your tax refund is now available — on X Premium. But wait! There’s a catch: You need to pay $11.99 a month to access it early. Otherwise, it’ll be held in review for six to 12 months, pending verification by some AI chatbot that only speaks in Doge memes.
Social Security checks? Oh, those are still going out. But now, instead of direct deposit, you have to claim them through a special promotion on X, where you watch three ads for Tesla and post a thread about your favorite Musk moment before funds are released.
Federal salaries? Congratulations! Your paycheck has been deposited into your new X wallet — currently available in dogecoin, Tesla stock, or exposure.
This is the future we’re barreling toward, because nobody in Congress has the spine to stop it. If a different president had let an unelected billionaire seize control of the Treasury, there would be riots in the streets. Fox News would be calling for military tribunals. But because Musk is their guy — an eccentric free-market lunatic who hates the same people they do — Republicans are letting it happen.
Musk is getting away with it because he understands a brutal, terrible truth: Nobody in Washington knows how to fight a guy who doesn’t care if he burns everything down. He’s already got the keys to federal hiring. He’s gutted agencies. He’s firing people who won’t cooperate and replacing them with his own freakish brand of libertarian techno-saboteurs. And now he’s inches away from taking over the government’s money machine.
This isn’t a government anymore. It’s X Pro: America Edition.
And what happens when the Treasury isn’t enough? When Musk decides he wants more? What’s stopping him from worming his way into controlling the IRS, or the Federal Reserve? One day, you wake up, and every function of government is locked behind a paywall. Need to renew your driver’s license? You have to verify your account with a Tesla purchase. Want to register to vote? That’s an X Premium Exclusive feature now.
David Lebryk saw the horror coming and ran. The rest of us? We’re trapped in Elon Musk’s America. And there’s no fucking way out.
This piece was originally posted on Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail on Feb. 1st, 2025. Photograph of Elon Musk courtesy of Free Malaysia Today.