Federal judge blocks Elon Musk’s access to US Treasury Data

On By Littum

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A federal judge in New York has temporarily blocked Elon Musk and his team to access the US Ministry of Finance’s payment data, warning that it risked leading to the transfer of sensitive information.

The order issued on Saturday morning is a new legal battle for the technological billionaire and his closest allied push to comb through federal payments in an attempt to cut US government costs.

The court’s step came in response to a legal challenge from 19 Democratic State Attorneys General, which argued that Musk’s unofficial “Institute of Government Efficiency” created by President Donald Trump should not have access to personal information relating to millions of Americans .

In the court order Judge Paul Engelmayer from the southern district of New York wrote That the “new policy” posed a risk of “transmitting sensitive and confidential information” and an “increased risk that the systems in question will be more vulnerable than before to hack”.

He ordered that all “political appointed, special government employees and any government employee” outside the US Treasury should be limited from accessing the agency’s data and to destroy all information they had obtained since Trump’s inauguration last month.

The order is expected to remain in place at least until a hearing set at February 14.

The judge’s order highlights how the extensive push from Trump and Musk to selectively cut public spending are facing his greatest obstacles in court as it tests the boundaries of executive power as well as America’s privacy legislation.

Earlier this week, a federal judge in the District of Columbia stated that outsiders should not access the Treasury’s payment data, in response to a separate legal challenge that representatives of pensioners and government employees have brought.

The White House has tried to dampen fear that Musk, who has been appointed to a “special employee of the government”, is running a junk surgery. But Democrats are increasingly sounding alarm bells about the activities of “DOGE”.

“Doge’s actions represent a two-front invasion of Americans’ financial security and privacy,” wrote Ron Wyden, the supreme Democrat of the Senate Finance Committee, in a letter To the functioning Commissioner of Social Security Administration, which controls public pensions for millions of Americans.

The Treasury Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.