SEC Beginning to Onboard DOGE Staff, Email Says

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is beginning to onboard officials with billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, according to an email sent on Friday to department staff.

SEC staff were informed that the DOGE task force had contacted the regulator, and that they would be treated as staff for the purposes of network, system and data access. The SEC is establishing a liaison team with the “intent to partner” with DOGE, the email said. The email was first reported by Reuters.

“Our intent will be to partner with the DOGE representatives and cooperate with their request following normal processes for ethics requirements, IT security or system training, and establishing their need to know before granting access to restricted systems and data,” the staff email stated.

A spokesperson for the SEC confirmed that it was beginning to onboard DOGE members. A spokesperson for the DOGE task force did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The SEC did not immediately respond for comment on what role, if any, Musk would play at the agency as part of DOGE. Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

As the nation’s top markets regulator, the SEC is privy to swaths of nonpublic data from banks, public companies, private funds and others, including confidential information about initial public offerings and supervisory examination records.

DOGE officials were expected to primarily work through the SEC’s liaison team, but staff may be contacted directly, the email stated. In those events, staff were told to “respond courteously” and gather information about any DOGE requests, but “please do not provide any substantive information” without first consulting the SEC’s liaison team.

The arrival of DOGE officials comes as the SEC is already undergoing a significant overhaul, as the agency shrinks amid restructurings and voluntary buyouts. Over 600 people have agreed to leave the agency under resignation incentive programs, which accounts for roughly 12% of its staff, according to the agency’s latest budget report to Congress.

The SEC has its budget set by Congress, but the actual funding comes from transaction fees imposed on the financial sector, meaning its operations ultimately cost the taxpayer nothing, according to the agency.

On Thursday, President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the agency, Paul Atkins, told Congress he would “definitely” be willing to work with Musk’s team on “efficiencies” at the agency if confirmed. The SEC is currently run by its acting Chairman Mark Uyeda.

Musk has had a tumultuous history with the market’s watchdog.

Before Trump assumed office, Musk was sued by the SEC in January, where he was accused of waiting too long to disclose a 2022 stake in Twitter, the social media company he later bought and renamed X. Musk did not settle the case, and his lawyer described it as the culmination of a “multi-year campaign of harassment” against his client.

Musk has feuded with the SEC since 2018 when the agency sued him for tweeting that he had secured funding to take his electric car maker Tesla private. In January, Musk called it a “totally broken organization.”