- A federal judge ordered Elon Musk and DOGE to produce records and answer questions about their work.
- Musk and DOGE have been given three weeks to comply with the order.
- Musk’s government efficiency commission has been hit with nearly two dozen lawsuits.
A federal judge ordered Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, to hand over documents and answer questions about their plans to trim federal agencies.
US District Judge Tanya Chutkan said in her order on Wednesday that Musk and DOGE have to comply with the discovery request in three weeks.
Under the order, Musk and DOGE must turn over records relating to their plans to cull federal agencies, terminate federal employees, and cancel federal contracts. The discovery requests do not apply to President Donald Trump, who signed an executive order establishing DOGE on January 20, the day he took office.
Last month, 14 Democratic state attorneys general filed a federal lawsuit against Trump, Musk, and DOGE. In their lawsuit, the attorneys general asked the court to “restore constitutional order” and stop Musk “from issuing orders to any person in the Executive Branch outside of DOGE.”
“Mr. Musk does not occupy an office of the United States and has not had his nomination for an office confirmed by the Senate. His officer-level actions are thus unconstitutional,” the lawsuit argued.
Chutkan denied that request in a ruling issued on February 18, writing that she could not issue a temporary restraining order against Musk and DOGE “without clear evidence of imminent, irreparable harm” to the states.
Nonetheless, Chutkan acknowledged in her ruling that the attorneys general did “legitimately call into question what appears to be the unchecked authority of an unelected individual and an entity that was not created by Congress and over which it has no oversight.”
Musk and DOGE have been hit with nearly two dozen lawsuits since the start of Trump’s second term. DOGE’s attempts to slash spending by laying off thousands of federal workers and shuttering foreign aid programs have sparked fear and confusion across the government.
This isn’t the first time Musk and DOGE have been ordered to turn over records of their work.
On Monday, District Judge Christopher Cooper ordered Musk and DOGE to release some of its records to comply with three Freedom of Information Act requests from a watchdog nonprofit.
In his ruling, Cooper wrote that DOGE was operating with “unusual secrecy” and the “public would be irreparably harmed by an indefinite delay” in responding to the FOIA requests.
When asked about Cooper’s ruling, a spokesperson for the Department of Justice told Business Insider on Tuesday that Musk and DOGE “are saving historic amounts of taxpayer money from being spent on unserious bureaucratic pet projects.”
“This Department has already been fighting in court to vigorously defend President Trump’s agenda and will continue to do so, especially when it comes to waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer dollars,” the spokesperson added.
Representatives for DOGE and the DOJ did not respond to requests for comment from BI.
