Educators, Students and Activists Rally to Kick Elon Musk Out of the Education Department

Elon Musk and His DOGE Minions Must Be Immediately Evicted Before They Put Millions of Americans’ Private, Personal and Financial Data at Even Graver Risk

WASHINGTON—Today, on the eve of Education Secretary-designee Linda McMahon’s Senate confirmation hearing, AFT President Randi Weingarten joined educators, parents, students and activists at a news conference to call for Elon Musk and his operatives to be banned from the U.S. Department of Education before they put millions of Americans’ private, personal and financial data at even graver risk.

On Monday, the AFT joined two other unions to sue the Education Department, the Office of Personnel Management and the Treasury Department for violating the Privacy Act by improperly disclosing millions of Americans’ sensitive records, including Social Security numbers, bank records and medical data, to Department of Government Efficiency staff.

AFT President Randi Weingarten said: “Inside the Education Department, the world’s richest man and his minions have been rifling through 45 million people’s private student loan accounts and feeding the data into artificial intelligence in one of the biggest data hacks in U.S. history. The department is effectively one of America’s biggest banks, with 45 million borrowers holding $1.6 trillion in loans. It holds your Social Security numbers, your kid’s IEP (Individualized Education Program), the name of your spouse. If there was a cyberhack of this magnitude in a private bank, there would be widespread uproar.

“That’s why this week, we sued the Education Department, OPM and Treasury for violating the Privacy Act by improperly disclosing the sensitive records of millions of Americans to DOGE staff. And tomorrow, we hope Linda McMahon will discuss what she’ll do to secure the personal data of veterans who receive benefit payments, current and former federal employees whose confidential employment files reside in OPM’s system, and teachers whose pathway to the classroom was reliant on student loans to pay for college tuition. The American people deserve to know what she’ll do to kick Elon Musk and DOGE out of the Education Department, out of our schools and out of our data.”

Hear more about why Kate Reilly, a parent of three; Sara Porcari, a 17-year-old public school student from Cheverly, Md.; and Ernesh Stewart, a school counselor in Washington, D.C., want #ElonOutOfEd here.