A federal judge in Maryland on Tuesday issued a preliminary injunction blocking billionaire Elon Musk and the U.S. DOGE Service from taking any further actions to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development, and ordered that steps be taken to allow the agency to reoccupy its headquarters inside the Ronald Reagan building in Washington, D.C., in the event of a final ruling in favor of the plaintiffs.
The decision from U.S. District Judge Theodore D. Chuang in federal court in Maryland marks another blow to the Trump administration’s efforts to dramatically reduce the size of the federal government, after other federal court orders to reinstate thousands of fired federal workers.
The lawsuit was brought by the State Democracy Defenders Fund on behalf of more than two dozen U.S. Agency for International Development workers named only as plaintiffs J. Does 1-26. They allege that Musk has assumed vast authority over federal agencies that is “unprecedented in U.S. history” and, under the Constitution, could only be exercised by someone who’s been nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate as an “Officer of the United States.”
As part of a “predictable and reckless slash-and-burn pattern,” Musk and his team at DOGE have, among other things, attempted to gain access to core government operation systems that is forbidden by privacy and security laws for individuals who have no clearance to do so, the complaint says.
If their attempts are met with resistance by agency officers or staff, the DOGE team members resort to threats — amplified by Musk on his X social media platform — or work to ensure that those officials are placed on leave or altogether removed, the complaint says.
“The richest man on earth, who was also the largest financial contributor to the President’s reelection campaign, is dismantling the Executive Branch limb-by-limb,” says a filing by SDDF, a nonpartisan democracy watchdog group that has organized several other lawsuits against President Donald Trump. The Constitution’s framers, the suit says, intended Senate confirmation in such circumstances “to prevent ‘a spirit of favoritism’ from resulting in ‘unfit characters’ exercising too much authority.”
Justice Department lawyers representing Musk and DOGE counter that they have no formal authority over USAID and other federal agencies. USAID’s own leaders, not Musk, have been responsible for actions such as halts in spending and placing employees on administrative leave, DOJ lawyers say.
“As a Senior Advisor, Mr. Musk has no greater authority than other senior White House advisors,” the Justice Department argues in a court filing, “and like them, has no actual or formal authority to make government decisions himself; he can only advise the President and communicate the President’s directives.”
Chuang’s decision comes after a federal judge presiding over a similar case in Washington declined to immediately block Musk from accessing government data systems or participating in worker layoffs. U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan found in mid-February that there were legitimate questions about Musk’s authority but said there wasn’t enough evidence of grave legal harm to justify a temporary restraining order. That decision came in a lawsuit filed by 14 Democratic states.
Trump named Musk as the head of DOGE, a new government office that was initially promised to comb through the whole federal bureaucracy searching for deep spending cuts. Since then, Musk has sought to exert sweeping control over the inner workings of the U.S. government, installing longtime surrogates at several agencies, including the Office of Personnel Management, which essentially handles federal human resources.
