US Must Face Claims of Musk Power Overreach as Trump Adviser (1)

A federal judge in Washington will allow a lawsuit to go forward that accuses billionaire Elon Musk of unconstitutionally exercising executive power during his time in the Trump administration last year as a presidential adviser.

US District Judge Tanya Chutkan on Monday denied the government’s request to fully dismiss a case filed by nonprofit organizations that claimed their members were harmed by the federal funding cuts and mass firings of government workers that they contend Musk played an unlawfully outsized role in directing.

It’s one of a handful of lawsuits challenging actions taken by the Department of Government Efficiency project last year that have outlasted Musk’s tenure in the US government. He stepped down last spring.

Elon Musk, left, and President Trump in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on Feb. 11, 2025.

Photographer: Aaron Schwartz/CNP/Bloomberg

Chutkan did agree to dismiss claims that broadly accused the DOGE office of illegally orchestrating firings and terminating grants and contracts, concluding they were too broad and untethered to specific agency actions.

But she said that the nonprofits could continue to press their argument that Musk — or any official leading DOGE — was exercising power similar to Senate-confirmed cabinet officials in violation of the Constitution’s Appointments Clause.

Musk spearheaded the DOGE project when President Donald Trump returned to the White House last year and served as the public face, even though the administration has maintained that he wasn’t the formal administrator of the office.

At this early stage of the case, Chutkan wrote, the nonprofits’ “complaint amply alleges that the head of DOGE himself makes decisions and issues directives on matters as weighty as the termination of federal grants, contracts, and workers.”

Dan Lenz, senior legal counsel for strategic litigation at the Campaign Legal Center, which represents the organizations that sued, said in a statement that they’re pleased the case will go forward.

“As we continue to learn, DOGE did massive damage to the federal government and its operations, with little to show for it, and without any lawful authority. We look forward to the opportunity to learn more and present our claims,” Lenz said.

Representatives of the White House and the Justice Department didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

A separate Appointments Clause case related to DOGE and Musk’s alleged role specifically in shuttering the US Agency for International Development is pending before a federal judge in Maryland.

Read More: Trump Administration Asks Supreme Court to Halt DOGE Inquiry

Earlier on Monday, the Justice Department asked the US Supreme Court to block efforts by a government watchdog group to obtain information and testimony about DOGE’s structure and activities.

(Updates with comment from plaintiffs’ representative.)

To contact the reporter on this story:
Zoe Tillman in Washington at ztillman2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Sara Forden at sforden@bloomberg.net

Peter Blumberg, Elizabeth Wasserman

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