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“Some federal officials say that they have been shocked by the carelessness with which Mr. Musk’s workers pierced government systems, including two that are repositories of millions of sensitive records: the Treasury and the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, both of which have been major targets of China’s intelligence services.

“The Treasury Department is a significant foreign policy actor in its own right,” James Goldgeier and Elizabeth N. Saunders wrote on Friday in Foreign Affairs. The authors, who are fellows at the Brookings Institution, noted the agency plays a central role in sanctions policy. The major sanctions targets — China, Russia, Iran and North Korea — are also the primary cyberadversaries for the United States.

“If Musk’s team has access to and can rewrite the code directing U.S. government payments, the cybersecurity and privacy risks would be massive,” they wrote. “Hostile intelligence services are likely already at work trying to assess which Musk team members might be sloppy with their digital devices or vulnerable to entrapment or coercion.”

The authors also noted that if Mr. Musk’s team has been granted security clearances, as the White House insists, it would most likely be with minimal to no vetting, a process that usually takes months.“