Donald Trump has been dropped from a lawsuit accusing his administration of illegally wielding power to slash government agencies and purge the federal workforce.
But a federal judge won’t let Elon Musk escape the case.
Musk — tapped by the president to lead the so-called Department of Government Efficiency — is facing a lawsuit from a group of 14 states arguing that the world’s wealthiest person lacks any legal authority to carry out mass firings, terminate grants and access sensitive government information and taxpayer data.
Attorneys for the Trump administration claimed Musk is only serving a temporary advisory role as a “special government employee” serving under the president.
But District Judge Tanya Chutkan shot down the White House’s attempt to “minimize” his role as “a mere advisor without any formal authority.”
Musk instead “occupies a continuing position” and “exercises significant authority,” all without “proper appointment” by Congress, Chutkan wrote.
The states suing the administration plausibly allege that Musk “makes decisions about ‘federal expenditures, contracts, government property, and the very existence of federal agencies,’” she added.
DOGE caused “financial harm” to states by slashing federal funding while gaining “unauthorized access” to “private and proprietary information,” according to the lawsuit.
“The Constitution does not permit the Executive to commandeer the entire appointments power by unilaterally creating a federal agency pursuant to Executive Order and insulating its principal officer from the Constitution as an ‘advisor’ in name only,” Chutkan wrote.
Musk and Trump have characterized DOGE — operating as the U.S. Doge Service, formerly the U.S. Digital Service — as “tech support” to end “waste, fraud and abuse.”
His DOGE agents, or federal workers doing work on its behalf, are deployed across all federal agencies
Musk’s position as a “special government employee” is limited to 130 days within the year, which would mean the tech billionaire could no longer be working at the White House by the end of this month.
But White House officials told The Independent that those working hours don’t fall neatly within the calendar. Musk is expected to remain a fixture within the administration, though he announced he plans to limit his time in Washington, D.C. — and how much money he spends on political campaigns — to focus on his company Tesla, which saw profits drop by 71 percent within the first three months of the year.
The lawsuit is among several accusing the Trump administration of unconstitutionally running roughshod through federal agencies.
That breakneck effort to keep up with DOGE’s actions in court has been met with what appears to be attempts from administration officials to obfuscate the true nature of Musk’s role — or scramble to name someone else in charge.
After weeks of secrecy in court and refusals from the White House to answer who, exactly, was running DOGE, reporters were sent a message on February 25 from an unnamed White House spokesperson naming Amy Gleason as the DOGE administrator.
Administration officials have insisted that Musk is not the administrator for DOGE. Trump, however, has said the exact opposite.
Musk has “no actual or formal authority to make government decisions himself,” according to a sworn statement from a senior White House official on February 18. The next day, Trump himself said he “signed an order creating the Department of Government Efficiency, and put a man named Elon Musk in charge.”
In a statement, New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez, who brought the case against DOGE, called Judge Chutkan’s decision “an important milestone for preserving America’s system of checks and balances.”
“We are proud to move this case forward and help bring Elon Musk’s reign of terror to an end,” he added.
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