On Monday, Elon Musk threw a spanner in the works by denouncing the alarming state of the federal government’s IT equipment. For the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, these tools are struggling to perform essential functions such as audits and fraud detection.
Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) tackles obsolete IT systems
From next January, Elon Musk will take up the reins of a delicate mission: to reduce wasteful spending by the US government through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). However, the billionaire has already made it clear that, if lasting savings are to be achieved, initial investment in modern infrastructure will be essential.
In particular, Elon Musk denounced the catastrophic state of federal IT systems. According to him, these outdated technologies are incapable of performing basic functions, such as verifying the legitimacy of payments or identifying fraud. A situation he sums up as follows:
That’s why the government can’t perform basic audits. Often, it literally doesn’t know where your taxes have gone. It just doesn’t make sense. My favorite job in the new administration is volunteer IT consultant. You have to fix the IT infrastructure to make government work.
Outdated equipment compromises administrative efficiency
An Internet user’s ironic remark about Windows 98-based computers in government offices found a surprising echo with Elon Musk, who replied: “Unfortunately, it’s much worse than that.” This alarming observation reinforces the idea that public administration is plagued by archaic systems, far removed from the modern standards of Silicon Valley.
But the entrepreneur recognizes that this problem goes far beyond the physical infrastructure. He also criticizes a bureaucracy he describes as “massive”.
Some of these measures are intentional. Most are simply the natural consequence of a massive bureaucracy that is unaccountable for results. If they were largely intentional, they would be easy to reverse.
In his latest response to the comments, he also considers that the government is paying far too much for “software that doesn’t work“.
A flaw ignored for too long
The obsolescence of IT systems in the US government has been widely documented for years. Reports reveal that many government agencies are still operating with technologies that are sometimes decades old.
In 2020, cyber attacks exposed gaping holes in federal digital infrastructures. Hackers managed to infiltrate the networks of several administrations, highlighting vulnerabilities due to the use of outdated Hardware and unupdated software. This type of problem is not new, and has often been denounced by Cybersecurity experts as a time bomb for public management.
These challenges are compounded by a massive bureaucracy, where slow decision-making processes hamper any attempt at modernization. Lack of accountability and transparency within administrations fuels this inertia. Although the need to upgrade these infrastructures is recognized, efforts to do so are often hampered by limited resources.
But the question remains: how long will these archaic systems hold up in the face of increasing safety requirements? For Elon Musk, the time has come to invest seriously in the modernization of digital tools, otherwise costs are likely to rise considerably.
