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Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has gained access “to a payroll system that processes salaries for about 276,000 federal employees across dozens of agencies,” despite “objections from senior IT staff who feared it could compromise highly sensitive government personnel information” and lead to cyberattacks, The New York Times reported today.

The system at the Interior Department gives DOGE “visibility into sensitive employee information, such as Social Security numbers, and the ability to more easily hire and fire workers,” the NYT wrote, citing people familiar with the matter. DOGE workers had been trying to get access to the Federal Personnel and Payroll System for about two weeks and succeeded over the weekend, the report said.

“The dispute came to a head on Saturday, as the DOGE workers obtained the access and then placed two of the IT officials who had resisted them on administrative leave and under investigation, the people said,” according to the NYT report. The agency’s CIO and CISO are reportedly under investigation for their “workplace behavior.”

When contacted by Ars today, the Interior Department said, “We are working to execute the President’s directive to cut costs and make the government more efficient for the American people and have taken actions to implement President Trump’s Executive Orders.”

DOGE’s access to federal systems continues to grow despite court rulings that ordered the government to cut DOGE off from specific records, such as those held by the Social Security Administration, Treasury Department, Department of Education, and Office of Personnel Management.

Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) don’t have to turn over information related to their government cost-cutting operations, at least for now, a federal appeals court ruled yesterday.

A federal judge previously ruled that 14 states suing the federal government can serve written discovery requests on Musk and DOGE. Musk, DOGE, and President Trump turned to the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in an attempt to block that order.

A three-judge panel at the appeals court granted an emergency motion for a stay in an order issued yesterday, putting the lower-court ruling on hold pending further orders from the appeals court. “Petitioners have satisfied the stringent requirements for a stay,” the panel ruling said. “In particular, petitioners have shown a likelihood of success on their argument that the district court was required to decide their motion to dismiss before allowing discovery.”

Musk, DOGE, and Trump filed a petition to quash the district court’s discovery order at the same time that they filed their emergency motion for a stay. The appeals court did not rule on the petition to quash the discovery order. The three-judge panel included judges appointed by George H.W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump.

The states suing the US alleged that “President Trump has delegated virtually unchecked authority to Mr. Musk without proper legal authorization from Congress and without meaningful supervision of his activities.” They sought “planning, implementation, and organizational documents,” but no emails, text messages, or other electronic communications.

US District Judge Tanya Chutkan denied a request for depositions but otherwise found the states’ discovery requests to be “reasonable and narrowly tailored to their request for injunctive relief.”