Energy secretary tries to cool worries about DOGE access to nuclear secrets

Energy Secretary Chris Wright said on Friday that Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency staffers do not have access to secretive information about the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile that is overseen by the department. His comments in a televised interview follow reports that at least one member of DOGE was provided access this week to the department’s IT systems, despite internal objections. One of the DOGE staffers, Luke Farritor, appears in the department’s registry as an “information engineer,” PMG’s E&E News reported this week. “I’ve heard these rumors, they’re like seeing our nuclear secrets and all that. None of that is true at all,” Wright told CNBC in an interview. Farritor is one of several engineers that DOGE has deployed across federal agencies, which has prompted concerns that Musk’s team has been given access to sensitive information. Wright said three members of the DOGE effort have entered the Energy Department to increase efficiency within the department, likening the individuals to “young gun management consultants” that will look at how it can run more efficiently. The three are part of team assembled by DOGE and part of Musk’s “broader circle,” Wright said, who are “very good at IT and very good at systems” and are doing a “critical evaluation.” “They don’t have anybody’s proprietary information. I know exactly who they are,” Wright said. “Run through, checked by our security, and they have access to look around, talk to people and give us some good feedback on how things are going.” “Nothing to be worried about here,” he added. Since President Donald Trump took office last month, the agency has placed dozens of staff working on diversity, equity and inclusion on administrative leave and has halted all funding actions to conduct a broader review of its spending. Wright earlier this week called staffers at the department “a gem of the American government.” The new secretary also addressed concerns about potential tariffs on Canada and the impact to U.S. oil and gasoline prices, stressing that the Canadian energy system is integrated with the U.S. system. “I don’t think we’re going to see that change,” he said, instead calling the tariff effort one focused on targeting drugs coming across the border. And Wright also criticized the previous administration’s actions on oil. “We’ve tried to starve the oil and gas industry globally somehow thinking that’s going to help climate change,” he told CNBC. “There’s been a lot of nonsense, and I think the agenda of this administration, this president is to bring back common sense.”

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