A federal judge on Saturday temporarily blocked Elon Musk’s government efficiency probe from peering into the Treasury Department system that distributes tax returns, federal employee salaries and benefits like Social Security, citing a risk of “irreparable harm” to privacy and ordering the destruction of any information extracted so far.
U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer backdated the order to destroy any gathered information to Jan. 20. The judge said in his stay that the effort “presents of the disclosure of sensitive and confidential information and the heightened risk that the systems in question will be more vulnerable than before to hacking.” He also set a hearing for February 14.
The ruling was a response to a lawsuit filed by 18 state attorneys general, including Letitia James of New York, whose office prosecuted 34 convictions for falsifying business documents. The White House called the weekend move an overreach in a Saturday statement.
“Grandstanding government efficiency speaks volumes about those who’d rather delay much-needed change with legal shenanigans than work with the Trump Administration of ridding the government of waste, fraud, and abuse,” White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said.
The federal workforce has mobilized several lawsuits to slow or stop the progress of the Department of Government Efficiency, which Trump appointed Musk to lead. But Musk declared at least a partial victory Saturday on X, saying DOGE reached an agreement with Treasury to start including tracking metadata like categorization codes and comments justifying the expense – something he says they had previously been told to leave blank.
Trump’s bulldozing through government spending hit another bump last week when a federal judge paused a deadline for federal employees to accept a buyout while legal challenges mount. Yet another federal court stopped a sweeping federal spending freeze.
