President Donald Trump on Friday said Elon Musk is doing a “very good job” with the Department of Government Efficiency.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s government efficiency team has been temporarily blocked from accessing certain government systems, according to a federal judge’s ruling on Saturday.
U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer issued the ruling after a group of attorneys general sued Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) on Friday, arguing that the presidential commission does not have the right to access U.S. Department of Treasury systems.
The order was condemned by Musk, who called the decision “absolutely insane” in an X post and accused Engelmayer of being “an activist posing as a judge.”
“How on Earth are we supposed to stop fraud and waste of taxpayer money without looking at how money is spent?” Musk said on Saturday.
PALANTIR CEO TOUTS ELON MUSK’S DOGE, ABILITY TO HOLD ‘SACRED COW OF THE DEEP STATE’ ACCOUNTABLE
Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla and owner of X. (Reuters/Gonzalo Fuentes / Reuters Photos)
The Friday lawsuit, which was filed by 19 Democratic attorneys general, claimed Musk’s team violated the law by being given “full access” to the Treasury’s payment systems. The systems include information about Americans’ Social Security, Medicare and veterans’ benefits, tax refund information and more.
The lawsuit was filed in New York by the office of New York Attorney General Letitia James, who wrote that President Donald Trump “does not have the power to give away Americans’ private information to anyone he chooses, and he cannot cut federal payments approved by Congress.”
“Musk and DOGE have no authority to access Americans’ private information and some of our country’s most sensitive data,” James’ statement added.Â
In his order, Engelmayer said that the lawsuit’s claims were “particularly strong,” and expressed concern about cybersecurity risks of DOGE having privileged Treasury Department access.
ELON MUSK’S DOGE MAKES ANOTHER HIRING PUSH
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and Elon Musk watch the launch of the sixth test flight of the SpaceX Starship rocket on November 19, 2024 in Brownsville, Texas (Brandon Bell/Getty Images / Getty Images)
“That is both because of the risk that the new policy 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,” Engelmayer wrote.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has expressed support for Musk and DOGE in the past, recently saying that the U.S. “doesn’t have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem.”
“At the Treasury, our payment system is not being touched,” Bessent said in a “Kudlow” interview on Wednesday. “We process 1.3 billion payments a year. There is a study being done — can we have more accountability, more accuracy, more traceability that the money is going where it is?”
Bessent also said that DOGE “is not going to fail” during the FOX Business appearance.
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Scott Bessent, US Treasury secretary, left, speaks during an executive order signing ceremony with US President Donald Trump, center, and Howard Lutnick, chief executive officer of Cantor Fitzgerald LP and US commerce secretary nominee, in the Oval O (Chris Kleponis/CNP/Bloomberg via Getty Images / Getty Images)
“They are moving a lot of people’s cheese here in the capital, and when you hear this squawking, then some status quo interest is not happy,” he observed.
Reuters and Fox News Digital’s Brie Stimson and Madeline Coggins contributed to this report.