DOGE Pushed Back by Judge in Treasury Case

A judge has limited Elon Musk’s efficiency group’s access to the Treasury Department’s payment system.

The order by U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly came after a group of unions accused the Treasury of illegally sharing member information with Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Bloomberg News reported Thursday (Feb. 6).

The order blocks the Treasury from offering access “to any payment record or payment system of records maintained by or within the Bureau of the Fiscal Service,” with some exceptions, as the judge weighs the unions’ request for a broader temporary restraining order.

According to Bloomberg, the order allows “read only” access to two “special government employees” Treasury recently brought in who have ties to DOGE: Tom Krause, CEO of Cloud Software Group, and Marko Elez, a 25-year-old engineer who has worked for two Musk companies: SpaceX and his social-media platform X.

The report noted that both have offices at Treasury, department email addresses and clearance to access some secure but unclassified Treasury information.

Treasury officials had said earlier this week that Musk and his associates were limited to “read only” access to the department’s payment systems.

“This is similar to the kind of access that Treasury provides to individuals reviewing Treasury systems, such as auditors, and that follows practices associated with protecting the integrity of the systems and business processes,” Jonathan Blum, principal deputy assistant secretary for legislative affairs at Treasury, wrote in a letter to lawmakers.

Speaking with PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster earlier this week, Amias Gerety — a high-ranking Treasury official under the Obama administration — said that more litigation is guaranteed if DOGE ultimately tries to interfere with payments. He added that the idea of a loosely defined organization such as DOGE interfering with this process was a “10-alarm fire.”

“This will end up in the courts if they stop payments,” Gerety, investor partner at QED, told Webster. “The mere fact of access, of read-only access, probably isn’t litigable. But the moment they try to block, delay or divert payments, lawsuits will fly.”

Concerns about DOGE’s access to the inner workings of the government seem to have reached the White House, at least on some level. President Donald Trump said earlier this week that Musk has no authority to dismiss employees without the administration’s consent.

“Elon can’t do and won’t do anything without our approval, and we’ll give him the approval where appropriate,” Trump said. “Where not appropriate, we won’t.”