A federal judge in Washington gave President Trump a major victory on Tuesday when she declined to bar Elon Musk and his associates from having access to data at seven federal agencies or involvement in mass firings.
In an order on Tuesday, Judge Tanya S. Chutkan in Federal District Court in Washington, wrote that a coalition of 14 state attorneys general from Democratic states that brought the lawsuit against Mr. Musk had failed to show specific examples of how Mr. Musk’s sweeping data collection efforts in recent days could cause those states imminent or irreparable harm.
“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,” Judge Chutkan wrote, referring to the Department of Government efficiency tasked with carrying out Mr. Musk’s vision. “But the ‘possibility’ that defendants may take actions that irreparably harm plaintiffs ‘is not enough.’”
The ruling by Judge Chutkan reflected the atmosphere of confusion surrounding the purpose and goals of Mr. Musk’s team, which judges in a number of court cases have repeatedly and unsuccessfully asked government lawyers to clarify.
It also reflected what Judge Chutkan described as the considerable uncertainty about what future cuts and layoffs could result from Mr. Musk’s effort to shrink the federal work force, 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 Mr. Musk is essentially informing his process on the fly, steering decisions about how to reshape federal agencies based on the data his team was actively extracting.
“The way in which DOGE and Mr. 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 on Monday. “I don’t see how defendants can dispute that.”
The states had sought a temporary restraining order to prevent Elon Musk or anyone at the “Department of Government Efficiency” 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 Mr. Musk’s operatives from “terminating, furloughing, or otherwise placing on involuntary leave” any employees at that work at those agencies.
Mr. 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 President Trump gave a greenlight 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.
