US judge blocks Musk's team from accessing Treasury Department data

The temporary restrictive order, which remains in effect until a February 14 hearing, also says any such person who has accessed data from the Treasury Department’s records since President Donald Trump’s January 20 inauguration must ‘immediately destroy any and all copies of material downloaded’ Representational image A US judge issued an emergency order early Saturday blocking Elon Musk’s government reform team from accessing personal and financial data for millions of Americans stored at the Treasury Department, court documents showed. US District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer’s order restricts giving access to Treasury Department payment systems and other data to “all political appointees, special government employees, and government employees detailed from an agency outside the Treasury Department.” The temporary restrictive order, which remains in effect until a February 14 hearing, also says any such person who has accessed data from the Treasury Department’s records since President Donald Trump’s January 20 inauguration must “immediately destroy any and all copies of material downloaded.” Musk, the world’s richest person, is leading Trump’s federal cost-cutting efforts under the so-called Department of Government Efficiency. The lawsuit from states including New York and California alleged that the Trump administration granted “virtually unfettered access” to BFS payment systems to “at least one 25-year-old DOGE associate” who had the “authority to view or modify numerous critical files.” That access “poses huge cybersecurity risks, including risks to States and States’ residents that their information will be used and processed, unchecked, in a manner not permitted by federal law,” says the states’ lawsuit filed in the US District Court in Manhattan late on Friday. It also said that reports indicated “that data from other federal agencies is being fed into an open-source Artificial Intelligence system owned and controlled by a private third party.” New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin said on Friday that Trump “has allowed an unelected billionaire to infiltrate key federal agencies and systems that store Social Security numbers, banking information, and other extremely sensitive data for millions of people.” More challenges More court challenges have taken shape as Trump has moved rapidly to overhaul the government’s spending and workforce.