Society

A 25-year-old engineer named Marko Elez, who previously worked for two Elon Musk companies, has direct access to Treasury Department systems responsible for nearly all payments made by the US government, three sources tell WIRED. Two of those sources say that Elez’s privileges include the ability not just to read but to write code on…

One of President Donald Trump’s first actions after taking office last month was to sign an executive order freezing foreign aid, much of which flows through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), an independent agency that represents less than 1 percent of the overall federal budget. The administration later said that “lifesaving” work…

In a Monday morning meeting, Thomas Shedd, the recently appointed Technology Transformation Services director and Elon Musk ally, told General Services Administration workers that the agency’s new administrator is pursuing an “AI-first strategy,” sources tell WIRED. Throughout the meeting, Shedd shared his vision for a GSA that operates like a “startup software company,” automating different…

Following a White House edict effectively banning federal employees from disclosing their personal pronouns in email signatures, sources within multiple federal agencies say pronouns are now being systemically blocked across multiple email clients and other software. WIRED confirmed various automated efforts with employees at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Environmental Protection…

In a charming corner of the Bay of Lübeck, within sight of northern Germany’s windswept beaches, specialized clearance teams have been trawling the seafloor for the kind of catch that fishermen in these parts usually avoid—discarded naval mines, torpedoes, stacks of artillery shells, and heavy aerial bombs, all of which have been rusting away for…

Elon Musk’s takeover of federal government infrastructure is ongoing, and at the center of things is a coterie of engineers who are barely out of—and in at least one case, purportedly still in—college. Most have connections to Musk, and at least two have connections to Musk’s longtime associate Peter Thiel, a cofounder and chair of…

On Friday, staff at what was formerly the United States Digital Service and is now part of Elon Musk’s DOGE initiative met with Stephanie Holmes, who identified herself as a part of the DOGE team and as the staff’s new HR representative. Throughout the meeting, which started at noon ET, dozens of USDS employees lobbed…

Several government websites have been taken down, including the USAID.gov, ForeignAssistance.gov, NeglectedDiseases.gov, and ChildrenInAdversity.gov. A WIRED analysis of more than 1,000 federal .gov websites found that at least seven sites linked to a USAID server went offline in a two-hour span on Saturday afternoon. On Friday, Reuters reported that word of sites being taken offline…

THIS ARTICLE IS republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. The Artemis program has been NASA’s best chance to get “boots on the moon” again. But with the new US administration taking guidance from tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, who is focused on Mars colonization, will they end up abandoning or pushing back lunar…

The rapid rise of DeepSeek, a Chinese generative AI platform, heightened concerns this week over the United States’ AI dominance as Americans increasingly adopt Chinese-owned digital services. With ongoing criticism over alleged security issues posed by TikTok’s relationship to China, DeepSeek’s own privacy policy confirms that it stores user data on servers in the country.…