Last week, Musk posted that he was “back to spending 24/7 at work and sleeping in conference/server/factory rooms.”
Lawsuits against Musk, DOGE continue
Musk and the Trump administration are facing numerous lawsuits over the authority wielded by DOGE and the large spending cuts imposed by the new government entity. In one case filed by 14 states against Musk, DOGE, and Trump, a federal judge dismissed President Trump from the lawsuit on Tuesday but said the lawsuit can proceed against Musk and DOGE.
“States allege that President Trump is the only individual in the Executive Branch who resolves matters of greater significance than Musk,” US Judge Tanya Chutkan of the District of Columbia wrote. “They claim that Musk decides the continued existence of federal agencies, the employment terms for millions of federal employees, and federal funds allocated by grants, contracts, and loans.”
The defendants “unsuccessfully attempt to minimize Musk’s role, framing him as a mere advisor without any formal authority,” Chutkan wrote. She disputed the government’s characterization of special government employees, saying that special employees may qualify as officers under US law.
“Defendants may not circumvent the Appointments Clause by designating individuals as special government employees,” Chutkan wrote, concluding that “defendants appear to sanction unlimited Executive power, free from checks and balances, but the Constitution prohibits unilateral control over ‘official appointments’ by ‘dividing the power to appoint the principal federal offices… between the Executive and Legislative Branches.'”
It appears likely that DOGE will continue exercising its power in the Trump administration indefinitely, the judge’s ruling said. “States allege that Musk is DOGE’s leader,” Chutkan wrote. “The court finds that States have sufficiently pleaded that this position qualifies as ‘continuing and permanent, not occasional or temporary,’ The subsidiary DOGE Service Temporary Organization has a termination date of July 4, 2026, but there is no termination date for the overarching DOGE entity or its leader, suggesting permanence.”
