The Treasury Payment System Elon Musk Now Has Access To

Odd Lots

Bloomberg

News, Investing, Business, News Commentary, Business News

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 5 February 2025

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have gained access to a unit within the Treasury Department called the Bureau of Fiscal Service. But what does this unit actually do? How critical of a role does it play in the operations of government, and potentially, financial markets? On this episode, we speak with Nathan Tankus, the author of the Notes On The Crises newsletter. He explains both the technical aspect of this office, as well as the legal questions surrounding impoundment and the ability of the executive branch to cut off payments that have been previously authorized by Congress. We also talk about the operational risks and the potential disaster scenario should this system — which has been built in COBOL over decades — go down.

Only Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox — now delivered every weekday — plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Donald Trump has already changed the way we think about the US economy. Now he's back in the White
0:05.5	House and Bloomberg's Trumponomics podcast is here to help. I'm Stephanie Flanders, head of
0:11.6	government and economics at Bloomberg. Whatever the big question of the week is, we'll have something
0:16.2	interesting to tell you about it in a lively conversation with the reporters and analysts closest to the action.
0:22.3	Listen to new episodes every Wednesday
0:23.9	and follow Trumponomics on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
0:27.4	or wherever you listen.
0:32.3	Bloomberg Audio Studios,
0:34.7	Podcasts, Radio News.
0:47.8	Music Radio Studios. Podcasts Radio News. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots podcast.
0:52.3	I'm Joe Wisenthall.
0:53.5	And I'm Tracy Allaway. Tracy, the theme of the last
0:57.0	two weeks has been, I don't know, emergency episodes of the podcast. Look, in some respects,
1:02.7	it's not surprising. New administration, new unexpected things. There's always going to be a
1:07.5	flurry of activity when a new administration comes, unexpected stuff.
1:13.2	But there's a lot.
1:14.6	Yes.
1:15.1	We're basically a daily show now, at least for the past two weeks.
1:18.3	Well, it's like how we were a daily show.
1:20.2	I mean, we used to just do one episode a week prior to COVID.
1:23.2	That was like really the mark of the world changing.
1:25.3	It's like, as soon as time it hit.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Bloomberg, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Bloomberg and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.