When Elon Musk and his team of young deputies gained access to the Treasury Department computer network that the US government uses to pay its bills, and where private financial data of nearly every American is stored, it caused alarm across the country.
It also seemed to put Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in the middle of a delicate standoff between bureaucrats at the agency he is charged with leading and President Donald Trump’s loudest adviser.
With Trump’s blessing, Musk, the world’s richest man and chief executive of automaker Tesla Inc., has been leading a tornadic campaign to remake ...