Elon Musk wants to create a mega API just for IRS data

Elon Musk wants to monitor IRS data by creating a mega API, according to a report by Wired. To create the API, the Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE will organize a hackathon in Washington, DC, by next week.

DOGE will work along with IRS leaders to organize a hackathon, and engineers will have two main tasks: dismantle the current IRS systems and build a new mega API that will control and oversee the IRS data. This means every taxpayer’s name, social security number, tax return, and other sensitive data will be accessed and manipulated by this mega API.

Musk’s DOGE to organize a hackathon

The DOGE hackathon will be organized by Sam Corcos and Gavin Kliger, two of the IRS’ most skilled DOGE operatives.

Corcos is a tech entrepreneur and CEO of Levels, a healthcare and tech company. He is also an adviser to Scott Bessent and “has been embedded at the Treasury Department,” according to a career federal employee. The Rolling Stone reported that Corcos has multiple ties to Elon Musk’s company, SpaceX.

Kliger doesn’t have any experience working for the government. Before he started working at DOGE, he attended UC Berkeley until 2022. Then, he worked at the AI company Databricks. According to the New York Times, Kliger confronted security officials from USAID, accessed sensitive Internal Revenue Service (IRS) data, and joined in taking down parts of the CFPB website.

Corcos talked about DOGE’s plans to have “one new API to rule them all.” This API will make it easy to access IRS data for cloud platforms. Application programming interfaces (APIs) let applications talk to each other and exchange data. In this case, an API will help in moving the IRS data to the cloud and this cloud platform will be a central point for reading all IRS systems. This means that anyone with access has the ability to view and use IRS data.

According to an IRS engineering source, DOGE and IRS leaders will organize the hackathon, and engineers will start dismantling the old IRS systems and create a new API within the next 30 days. Once the new API is ready, Crocos said they will deploy it to the IRS’s mainframes and then apply it to every other internal system. Such a system will have access to all IRS data, including names, social security numbers, tax returns, and even employment data.

Some sources told Wired that DOGE representatives spoke about the software company Palantir many times, making it a potential partner that will assist in handling the IRS data. Palantir was founded by Peter Thiel, a billionaire and one of Musk’s associates.

At the moment, the IRS operates various systems hosted in on-site data centers and on the cloud, and these systems are separate and designed to function independently. Such systems has permission-based access and workers will only see data essential to their role.  

In a recent FOX News interview, Corcos said that, “The IRS has some pretty legacy infrastructure. It’s actually very similar to what banks have been using. It’s old mainframes running COBOL and Assembly and the challenge has been, how do we migrate that to a modern system?”

Crocos stated that he was brought in to oversee the IRS’s modernization program, which is 30 years behind schedule and over budget by $15 billion. He is expected to continue his role at the IRS for six months.

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