A federal judge denied a request to temporarily bar Elon Musk and the Trump administration’s “government efficiency” team from accessing internal systems and removing employees at multiple US agencies, handing a win to President Donald Trump over one of his signature initiatives.
US District Judge Tanya Chutkan in Washington on Tuesday rejected a bid for immediate court intervention from Democratic state attorneys general who contend Musk is exercising power to reshape the US government that is supposed to be reserved only for high-level, Senate-confirmed officials.
Chutkan explained that the states hadn’t shown that they would suffer “imminent, irreparable harm” while the case moves forward, adding that media reports about actions by Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency weren’t enough to base an order on.
But she also said that it appeared the states had raised a valid claim “with serious implications” about Musk’s role in the administration.
“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,” the judge wrote. “In these circumstances, it must be indisputable that this court acts within the bounds of its authority.”
The states had asked for the emergency 14-day order while Chutkan weighs a request for a broader and longer-term injunction barring Musk and DOGE staff not only from accessing agency systems, but also making decisions about policy, budgets and personnel.
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The states are making a constitutional challenge to the Tesla Inc. and SpaceX chief executives officer’s role in the Trump administration.
Greater power
During a hearing on Monday, Chutkan signalled that she was open to the argument that regardless of Musk’s official title in the Trump administration as a temporary “special government employee,” he was in fact exercising far greater power.
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US Justice Department lawyer Harry Graver argued that the states were unlikely to win their underlying claim that Musk’s position violated the Constitution’s Appointments Clause, which he said was “entirely about somebody occupying an office and using the trappings of that office to wield sovereign power”.
“Nowhere have my friends offered a shred of anything, nor could they, to show that Elon Musk has any formal or actual authority to make any government decisions himself,” Graver said.
Chutkan interrupted him.
“Oh Mr. Graver,” she said. “I think you stretch too far. I disagree with you there.” But she then moved the discussion on, noting that was a merits question for later on.
Several hours after the hearing, the Justice Department filed a notice with Chutkan that included a declaration from a White House official representing that Musk is not the administrator of DOGE, does not work for the DOGE offices and, echoing Graver’s remarks during the hearing, “has no actual or formal authority to make government decisions himself”.
‘Advise the President’
“Mr. Musk can only advise the President and communicate the President’s directives,” wrote Joshua Fisher, the director of the White House Office of Administration.
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The 14-state coalition is broadly suing to undo all of the actions that the billionaire Trump ally has taken so far and bar DOGE from operating, at least in its current form.
The states had narrowed their short-term request for a temporary restraining order to seven agencies — the Office of Personnel Management and Departments of Education, Labour, Health and Human Services, Energy, Transportation and Commerce. They also focused on the records access and personnel moves after Chutkan expressed concern about the breadth of their initial request.
Chutkan on Monday pressed the lawyer arguing for the states, Anjana Samant of the New Mexico Justice Department, on evidence they had about how and when Musk and his team are accessing agency records or moving to fire or place federal workers on leave, and how that would immediately hurt the states in ways they couldn’t fix in a few weeks or months.
The judge said she couldn’t rely only on media reports, even as she acknowledged that Musk’s speed presented challenges for the plaintiffs to meet the standard of proving “concrete harm.”
Moving quickly
“One of the problems we’re having is that DOGE appears to be moving in no sort of predictable and orderly fashion, and, you know, plaintiffs are obviously scrambling to find out what’s next,” she said. “I don’t know if that’s deliberate or not.”
Samant pointed to Musk’s social media posts and public comments about which agencies DOGE was looking at or going into. She said that the states relied not only on federal funds, but also US government employees to provide guidance and operations support for the programs they offer to their citizens.
Chutkan meanwhile was incredulous that Graver couldn’t confirm reports that thousands of federal employees had received notices before the weekend that they were being fired.
“Wait a minute. I mean, the firing of thousands of federal employees is not a small or common thing,” the judge said. “You haven’t been able to confirm that?”
Graver said he’d been focused on information that would be relevant to the claims raised by the states, and Chutkan said it was. Graver said he would look into it and provide information to the judge. In the department’s filing to Chutkan after the hearing, attorneys wrote that they could confirm that federal employees had been terminated but didn’t provide details. They also said that they couldn’t confirm if more firings were coming at other agencies in the next two weeks.
