Lauren Feiner is a senior policy reporter at The Verge, covering the intersection of Silicon Valley and Capitol Hill. She spent 5 years covering tech policy at CNBC, writing about antitrust, privacy, and content moderation reform.
A US federal judge declined to block Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from accessing or transferring data from seven government agencies, or stop further firings of their workforce.
DC District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan denied a temporary restraining order (TRO) sought by a group of 14 Democratic state attorneys general, led by New Mexico. The states had argued that Musk and DOGE have acted to trim the federal workforce, agency projects, and gain unprecedented data access without the proper authority. The Trump administration told the court that Musk is actually not an employee nor administrator of DOGE at all — he is instead an employee of the separate White House Office and advisor to the president. Chutkan found the states couldn’t meet the high standard for the emergency block by showing that they’d be irreparably harmed unless she stopped DOGE. It’s not enough to posit the mere possibility that the group would take “take actions that irreparably harm” the states, she says.
Still, Chutkan seems open to aspects of the states’ case. The AGs “raise a colorable Appointments Clause claim with serious implications. Musk has not been nominated by the President nor confirmed by the U.S. Senate, as constitutionally required for officers who exercise ‘significant authority pursuant to the laws of the United States,’” she writes. “Accepting Plaintiffs’ allegations as true, Defendants’ actions are thus precisely the ‘Executive abuses’ that the Appointments Clause seeks to prevent.” Chutkan also admonishes the Trump administration counsel in a footnote where she suggests an official’s sworn declaration characterizing the authority that Trump’s executive order creating DOGE “contemplates” appears to contradict the plain text of the order. “Defense counsel is reminded of their duty to make truthful representations to the court,” she writes.
The states still have the opportunity to pursue the case on the merits, and file for a preliminary injunction. That would provide a new opportunity to seek to stop Musk and DOGE’s access to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), Departments of Commerce, Education, Energy, Labor, Health and Human Services (HHS), and Transportation.
“While we are disappointed that the court declined to issue a temporary restraining order, we remain committed to putting an end to Elon Musk’s unlawful power grab,” New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez says in a statement. “Every day that he is allowed to operate without a congressional mandate and with little apparent supervision, Musk is destabilizing our government and disrupting critical funding for education, public health and national security. His move fast and break things mentality is not only reckless, but also unconstitutional, and we are prepared to pursue this case for as long as it takes to bring this chaos to an end.”
