A DOGE staffer with access to the private information on millions of Americans held by the U.S. government reportedly exposed a private API key used for interacting with Elon Musk’s xAI chatbot.

Independent security journalist Brian Krebs reports that Marko Elez, a special government employee who in recent months has worked on sensitive systems at the U.S. Treasury, the Social Security Administration, and Homeland Security, recently published code to his GitHub containing the private key. The key allowed access to dozens of models developed by xAI, including Grok.

Philippe Caturegli, founder of consultancy firm Seralys, alerted Elez to the leak earlier this week. Elez removed the key from his GitHub but the key itself was not revoked, allowing continued access to the AI models.

“If a developer can’t keep an API key private, it raises questions about how they’re handling far more sensitive government information behind closed doors,” Caturegli told KrebsOnSecurity.