WASHINGTON: A US judge issued an emergency order early Saturday blocking Elon Musk’s government reform team from accessing personal and financial data for millions of Americans stored at the Treasury Department, court documents showed.
US District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer’s order restricts giving access to Treasury Department payment systems and other data to “all political appointees, special government employees, and government employees detailed from an agency outside the Treasury Department.”
The temporary restrictive order, which remains in effect until a February 14 hearing, also says any such person who has accessed data from the Treasury Department’s records since President Donald Trump’s January 20 inauguration must “immediately destroy any and all copies of material downloaded.”
Musk, the world’s richest person, is leading Trump’s federal cost-cutting efforts under the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
The case was brought against the Republican president, the Department of the Treasury and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent by attorneys general from 19 states on Friday.
They alleged the administration violated the law by expanding access to sensitive Treasury Department data to staff from Musk’s DOGE.
The Tesla, SpaceX and X chief is neither a federal employee nor a government official, although US media reported this month that he had been registered as a “special government employee.”
Comments