WASHINGTON — Temporary special government employees working at the behest of the U.S. DOGE Service, under President Donald Trump and billionaire campaign donor Elon Musk, can continue accessing data across federal agencies, a federal judge in the District of Columbia ordered Tuesday.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan wrote that the more than a dozen state attorneys general who sued Musk, Trump and DOGE Service, did not adequately show they will “suffer imminent, irreparable harm absent a temporary restraining order,” though Chutkan noted later in the filing that the plaintiffs “raise a colorable Appointments Clause claim with serious implications.”
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“Plaintiffs legitimately call into question what appears to be the unchecked authority of an unelected individual and an entity that was not created by Congress and over which it has no oversight. In these circumstances, it must be indisputable that this court acts within the bounds of its authority. Accordingly, it cannot issue a TRO, especially one as wide-ranging as Plaintiffs request, without clear evidence of imminent, irreparable harm to these Plaintiffs. The current record does not meet that standard,” Chutkan said.
Chutkan’s is the latest order in a string of lawsuits against the Trump administration — though others have blocked or limited the administration’s actions. Chutkan was named to the bench by former President Barack Obama.
Attorneys general argue Musk has ‘unchecked power’
Fourteen Democratic state attorneys general in a Feb. 13 complaint accused Musk, Trump, the U.S. DOGE Service and its associated temporary organization, of violating the Constitution when handing Musk “virtually unchecked power across the Executive branch.”
The plaintiffs later continued, “Although he occupies a role President Trump — not Congress — created and even though the Senate has never voted to confirm him, Mr. Musk has and continues to assert the powers of an ‘Officer of the United States’ under the Appointments Clause. Indeed, in many cases, he has exceeded the lawful authority of even a principal officer, or of the President himself,” according to the complaint led by New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes and Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel.
State attorneys general from California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington, also joined the lawsuit.
The lawsuit is among scores of legal actions challenging the Trump administration’s firings, freezing of federal funds and numerous executive orders. A tracker published by the online forum Just Security is following 75 lawsuits since Trump’s inauguration.
Thousands of government workers have received termination notices following DOGE’s access to files across numerous federal agencies.
DOGE is shorthand for the Department of Government Efficiency, which is not actually a department. The temporary project was established by Trump via executive order with the purpose of modernizing government technology.
Trump and Musk promoted the idea of DOGE along the campaign trail, with Musk promising to cut $2 trillion in federal spending.
Musk, a prolific poster on his social media platform X, often takes credit for slashing government contracts and reducing the federal workforce.
“We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper,” Musk posted X Feb. 3 after his DOGE representatives forced their way into computer systems at the U.S. Agency for International Development.
On Feb. 11, Trump and Musk spoke to reporters in the Oval Office for a half hour about DOGE.
“Could you mention some of the things your team has found?” Trump asked Musk.
Musk is ‘not an employee’
But following a hearing Monday, the Trump administration submitted a filing to Judge Chutkan stating that Musk “is not an employee of the U.S. DOGE Service or U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization.”
Joshua Fisher, director of the Office of the Administration, testified in the filing that Musk is a special government employee and a senior adviser to the president.
“Like other senior White House Advisors, Mr. Musk has no actual or formal authority to make government decisions himself. Mr. Musk can only advise the President and communicate the President’s directives,” Fisher said.
Chutkan said in her order that “Even Defendants concede there is no apparent “source of legal authority granting [DOGE] the power” to take some of the actions challenged here … Accepting Plaintiffs’ allegations as true, Defendants’ actions are thus precisely the ‘Executive abuses’ that the Appointments Clause seeks to prevent … But even a strong merits argument cannot secure a temporary restraining order at this juncture.”
Musk was the top campaign donor to Trump and Republicans during the 2024 election cycle at $288 million.
Musk owns Tesla, SpaceX, xAI, Neurolink and X, formerly known as Twitter, and is worth $379 billion, according to Bloomberg’s billionaire index cited in court filings.
As of October, Musk had more than $15 billion in U.S. government contracts across nine Cabinet departments and three independent agencies, according to a New York Times analysis.
Last updated 3:22 p.m., Feb. 18, 2025
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