According to court documents, Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) has been barred by a federal judge from accessing Treasury Department databases that contain the personal financial information of millions of Americans. On Saturday, US District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer granted a preliminary injunction prohibiting access and directing Musk and his colleagues to delete all copies of records. The move comes after 19 state attorneys general sued the Trump administration over Doge, Musk's cost-cutting project, being granted access to the documents.
They claimed that access to Musk, a "special government employee," and Doge, which is not an official government department, breached federal law. The White House, President Donald Trump, or Musk did not immediately respond to the injunction prohibiting the defendants from allowing actual government workers, political appointees, and other employees outside the agency. to access Treasury agency documents containing personally identifiable or secret information
The injunction prevents anybody else from accessing those documents, except government officials who need to do so for their work at the Bureau of Fiscal Services and have undergone background checks. The judge further ordered that anyone among those limited erase copies of records immediately. The conditions will remain in place until the next court hearing on February 14th. During Trump's second term, tech tycoon and billionaire Musk has been extensively involved in upheaval, with Doge spearheading major cuts at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which distributes billions of dollars in aid around the world.
