Treasury, Bessent sued over giving access to Musk's DOGE

Sabrina Willmer, Bloomberg News on Feb 3, 2025

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WASHINGTON — The Treasury Department was accused of breaking federal law by giving Elon Musk’s team of government efficiency enforcers access to a trove of personal and financial information — setting up a legal showdown over the Trump administration’s signature effort to shrink the government.

Union groups, including the AFL-CIO, and the Alliance for Retired Americans said in a lawsuit Monday that Treasury and Scott Bessent, who leads the agency, had illegally allowed their members’ records to be shared with Musk’s group known as DOGE. President Donald Trump has put Musk in charge of an effort to modernize federal information technology.

Trump has explained that Musk, the world’s richest person, doesn’t have the power to stop payments himself without approval, but that he was given access to the Treasury systems to monitor federal spending.

According to the lawsuit, Treasury is involved in an “unlawful ongoing, systematic, and continuous disclosure of personal and financial information” to Musk’s team. “The scale of the intrusion into individuals’ privacy is massive and unprecedented,” the groups said.

Neither a press representative for Treasury nor a DOGE representative immediately responded to emailed requests for comment. The unions are represented by lawyers from Public Citizen Litigation Group and State Democracy Defenders Fund.

The lawsuit cited reports that Bessent granted the DOGE team access to the federal payment system last week after a senior career official at the department resigned. The systems include sensitive information on taxpayers, employees and companies, according to the suit.

Musk’s effort to obtain information has encountered resistance from civil servants. Staff at the U.S. Agency for International Development were put on administrative leave after trying to block DOGE staff from accessing classified information. The newly appointed interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia has threatened to take legal action against anyone who impedes or threatens DOGE.

The White House confirmed Monday that Musk is what’s known as an SGE, or special government employee. An SGE is an officer or employee in the executive branch of the federal government who typically serves for a limited period of time.

“Elon Musk is selflessly serving President Trump’s Administration as a special government employee, and he has abided by all applicable federal laws,” White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.

The case is Alliance for Retired Americans v. Bessent, 25-cv-00313, US District Court, District of Columbia (Washington).

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(Bloomberg staff writer Gregory Korte contributed to this story.)