A federal judge early Saturday temporarily blocked billionaire Elon Musk’s government efficiency team from accessing government systems used to process trillions of dollars in payments, citing a risk that sensitive information could be improperly disclosed.
U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer in Manhattan issued the order, opens new tab after a coalition of Democratic attorneys general from 19 U.S. states filed a lawsuit late Friday arguing Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has no legal power to access the U.S. Department of Treasury systems.
The ruling also applied to other political appointees of President Donald Trump’s administration.
Hours after it was issued, Musk called it “absolutely insane!” in a post on his social media platform X. The billionaire said the Treasury Department and DOGE had agreed to require all outgoing government payments to include a rationale in the form of a comment and to have a categorization code.
Musk also said that a do-not-pay list of entities that should not receive government payments should be updated at least weekly, if not daily.
The changes, Musk said on X, were “obvious and necessary” and being implemented by government employees, and not by anyone from DOGE.
The lawsuit said Musk and his team could disrupt federal funding for health clinics, preschools, climate initiatives, and other programs, and that Trump could use the information to further his political agenda.
DOGE’s access to the system also “poses huge cybersecurity risks that put vast amounts of funding for the States and their residents in peril,” the state attorneys general said. They sought a temporary restraining order blocking DOGE’s access.
