Tipsheet

Here's the Crucial Legal Win Elon Musk and DOGE Just Clinched in the Courts

Matt Vespa
Matt Vespa  |  February 16, 2025 7:00 AM

Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency clinched a major legal win over three agencies that have decided to get litigious over giving DOGE staffers access to their systems. They claim that it’s over privacy concerns. There may be some truth, but we all see through the smokescreen: this is about protecting wasteful spending after what was revealed at USAID. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Department of Labor, and Health and Human Services tried to block DOGE—it failed (via Fox News):

A federal judge in Washington on Friday handed Elon Musk's government efficiency team a win by declining a request to temporarily block it from accessing sensitive data from at least three federal agencies.

Unions and nonprofits attempted to stop Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from accessing records at the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. 

U.S. District Judge John Bates wrote in an opinion that the government was likely correct in categorizing DOGE as an agency, thereby allowing it to detail its staff to other government departments. 

However, Bates called his finding a "close question," noting that the government did not want DOGE to be considered an agency for purposes of another federal law, which would subject it to open records requests. 

DOGE isn’t going away, Democrats. It’s here to stay. Sure, you can file legal actions. It will only delay the inevitable.