Judge declines to block Musk team’s foray into federal agencies

WASHINGTON — A federal judge in Washington gave President Donald Trump a victory for now when she declined Tuesday to bar Elon Musk and his associates from ordering mass firings or having access to data at seven federal agencies.

The judge, Tanya S. Chutkan of U.S. District Court in Washington wrote that a coalition of 14 state attorneys general could not provide specific examples of how Musk’s team’s efforts would cause imminent or irreparable harm to the states or their residents.

“The court is aware that DOGE’s unpredictable actions have resulted in considerable uncertainty and confusion for plaintiffs and many of their agencies and residents,” Chutkan wrote, referring to the so-called Department of Government Efficiency tasked with carrying out Musk’s vision. But the mere possibility that “defendants may take actions that irreparably harm plaintiffs” was not enough to grant emergency relief.

Chutkan nonetheless appeared to suggest that the lawsuit had a strong chance of succeeding with the benefit of additional evidence, which could be introduced later as litigation continues.

“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,” she wrote.

Chutkan’s ruling reflected the atmosphere of confusion surrounding the goals of Musk’s team. Judges in a number of court cases have repeatedly and unsuccessfully asked government lawyers to clarify those aims.

It also reflected what Chutkan described as the considerable uncertainty about what future cuts and layoffs could result from Musk’s effort to shrink the federal workforce, which has resulted in the termination of hundreds of federal contracts and thousands of workers in recent weeks.

“The court can’t act based on media reports,” she said. “We can’t do that.”

The coalition of 14 states had argued in the case that Musk is essentially steering decisions on the fly about how to reshape federal agencies based on the data his team was actively extracting.

“The way in which DOGE and Musk have identified how to make cuts is through use and analysis of the agency data,” Anjana Samant, a deputy counsel at the New Mexico Department of Justice, said Monday. “I don’t see how defendants can dispute that.”

The states had sought a temporary restraining order to prevent Musk or anyone on his team from combing through data at seven agencies: the Office of Personnel Management and the departments of Education, Labor, Health and Human Services, Energy, Transportation, and Commerce. It also sought to prevent Musk’s operatives from “terminating, furloughing, or otherwise placing on involuntary leave” any employees at that work at those agencies.

Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency, which is not a department but a small team housed within the executive office of the president, regularly spotlights obscure grants and contracts on its website as examples of runaway spending that Trump gave a green light to slash. But in the process, it has also pushed billions of dollars in cuts without explanation, and spurred personnel changes, including the firing or suspension of thousands of workers.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

© 2025 The New York Times Company