Members of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency team have obtained “administrator” email accounts at the Department of Education, just as President Donald Trump announced that the billionaire will soon be examining the agency closely.
The rapid deployment of Musk’s aides across multiple agencies has raised concern from federal officials, lawmakers and watchdog groups that his team has gained access to sensitive information and is leading a purge of government workers.
When NBC News asked Trump at a White House press conference Friday about allegations that Musk and DOGE’s widespread staff cuts might be unlawful, Trump defended the approach, noting that the Education Department was high on Musk’s list of targets. “He will be looking at education pretty quickly,” Trump said.
NBC News verified that Akash Bobba and Ethan Shaotran, both 22 years old and identified as members of DOGE, have administrator-level status in the department’s email system, allowing them to potentially access sensitive information. Two sources currently employed at the department also said that Shaotran had accessed the back end of the ed.gov website on Friday.
Three employees of the department emphasized it is highly unusual for anyone from another government agency to get ed.gov emails. The Department of Education did not respond to requests for comment on Friday.
Tension is high at the Education Department, where leadership announced earlier this week that staff who take the deferred resignation package offered to much of the federal workforce would waive their right to sue if the government fails to uphold the offer. The employee union urged them not to take the deal, worried that it’s “eerily similar to the situation at Twitter” during Musk’s takeover, in which employees did not get the severance they expected.
One longtime employee at the Department of Education who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal sentiments said there is an urgent and deep worry sweeping across the agency’s career staff as DOGE sets its sights on them.
The person said they were especially concerned that Musk and his team would use information from the national student loan database to target Americans, push career employees out and hamper the federal government’s ability to collect on federal loans.
The New York Times reported that as many as 16 DOGE team members are now listed in the Education Department directory, and according to The Washington Post, they have fed sensitive personal and financial data from the department into artificial intelligence software.
On Friday morning, a group of House Democrats attempted to enter the Education Department headquarters to meet with acting Education Secretary Denise Carter after 95 signed a letter expressing concern about the administration’s plans to possibly try to close the department. The representatives were stopped by security and denied entry, sparking a chaotic scene as lawmakers clamored to get in.
“They are blocking members of Congress from entering the Department of Education! Elon is allowed in and not the people? ILLEGAL,” Rep. Maxwell Frost, D-Fla., posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Also on Friday, the watchdog group Public Citizen sued the department on behalf of the University of California Student Association, a group of student government representatives, seeking an injunction to block DOGE staff from accessing “sensitive personal and financial information.” The suit cites reporting that DOGE-affiliated individuals accessed the department’s internal systems containing federal student aid information.
“The scale of the intrusion into individuals’ privacy is enormous and unprecedented,” the suit states. “The personal data of over 42 million people lives in these systems.”
Adding to the bedlam this week, a new memo that went out across the department called for a sweeping review of all grants that “promote or take part in diversity, equity, and inclusion” initiatives. The goal, it states, is rooting out “discriminatory practices — including in the form of DEI — that are either contrary to law or to the Department’s policy objectives,” according to the memo obtained by NBC News.
It isn’t unusual for a new administration to set priorities with how the billions of dollars in grants are doled out. What is unusual, and could bring a torrent of legal challenges, is the potential to reopen grants that were already awarded, said a former senior education official. Aside from legal repercussions, the official said that suddenly canceling grants could cause great disruption to communities that are relying on the money for resources like more teachers and tutors. Long-standing federal grants have also funded magnet schools, if the schools demonstrate that they have a desegregation plan in place.
Now, officials at the department say they are still unclear on how the administration is interpreting DEI — whether it includes services for students with disabilities, for instance, or those learning English as a second language.
“I don’t know how you eliminate DEI without attacking the special needs programs,” a current administration official said.
Madison Biedermann, an Education Department spokeswoman, said the review is to ensure grant programs are in compliance with civil rights laws, “i.e., that they are not supporting discriminatory practices on the basis of race, national origin, or other protected characteristics.”
“The Department manages important grant programs that Congress has established to support schools that serve specific populations, and will be careful in the review to ensure that these grants are both in line with Administration priorities while serving the specific populations,” Biedermann said.
The rapid clip of changes has outpaced the confirmation process for department leadership.
Linda McMahon, Trump’s nominee for education secretary, is scheduled to appear in a confirmation hearing before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee on Feb. 13. McMahon, the former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, is currently chairperson of the America First Policy Institute, a 4-year-old Trump-aligned think tank. Four of the top officials already appointed at the Education Department worked for the think tank.
One current Department of Education official, a military veteran, described a scene of confusion and demoralization as Trump and Musk portray federal workers as lazy. Others are digging in their heels because they feel as if they’re being bullied.
“There are people who are panicking. There are people who are eligible for retirement and still say, ‘I’m not going anywhere. I’m not going to voluntarily give in to the pressure and the intimidation.’ That’s all this really is.”
Since Trump’s inauguration, the department has already demonstrated a notable shift in priorities.
Earlier this week, it announced plans to launch Title IX investigations into two universities and one athletic association for violating the administration’s executive order banning transgender women’s participation in sports, and opened an inquiry into Denver Public Schools for changing a single girl’s bathroom into a gender-neutral one. The department said that it would revert to enforcing the Title IX regulation imposed during the first Trump administration, rather than the Biden-era rules. And it canceled 11 investigations into school districts over book bans — opened due to complaints that the schools targeted titles by LGBTQ authors and people of color — and called the complaints a “hoax.”
Department staff also received a directive this week to ensure their email signature blocks do not include “extraneous information, including gender identifying pronouns, motivational quotes, and GIFs.” The email was marked “high importance.”
Yamiche Alcindor and Garrett Haake contributed.
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