Washington — A federal judge on Tuesday found that Elon Musk and the White House’s Department of Government Efficiency likely violated the Constitution when they unilaterally acted to shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development.
U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang ruled in favor of a group of more than two dozen unnamed current and former USAID employees and contractors who had challenged the efforts to shutter USAID, which were mounted by DOGE and Musk, a senior White House adviser who President Trump has said is the leader of the task force.
Chuang granted in part their request for a preliminary injunction and said in a 68-page decision that DOGE and Musk likely violated the Constitution’s Appointments Clause and separation of powers.
He ordered Musk and task force employees to reinstate access to email, payment and other electronic systems to all current USAID employees and personal services contractors. The judge also prevented DOGE and Musk from taking any action relating to the shutdown of USAID, including placing employees on administrative leave, firing USAID workers, closing its buildings, bureaus or offices, and deleting the contents of its websites or collections.
DOGE and Musk are prohibited under the judge’s order from taking any other actions relating to USAID without the “express authorization” of an agency official with legal authority to take the action. The Trump administration is likely to appeal the decision.
“To deny plaintiffs’ Appointments Clause claim solely on the basis that, on paper, Musk has no formal legal authority relating to the decisions at issue, even if he is actually exercising significant authority on governmental matters, would open the door to an end-run around the Appointments Clause,” Chuang wrote.
He continued: “If a president could escape Appointments Clause scrutiny by having advisers go beyond the traditional role of White House advisors who communicate the president’s priority to agency heads and instead exercise significant authority throughout the federal government so as to bypass duly appointed officers, the Appointments Clause would be reduced to nothing more than a technical formality.”
Norm Eisen, executive chair of the State Democracy Defenders Fund, which brought the case on behalf of the 26 USAID employees and contractors, said the ruling is an “important victory” against Musk and DOGE.
“They are performing surgery with a chainsaw instead of a scalpel, harming not just the people USAID serves but also the majority of Americans who count on the stability of our government,” he said in a statement. “This case is a milestone in pushing back on Musk and DOGE’s illegality.”
USAID was one of the first agencies that came under scrutiny by DOGE as part of Mr. Trump’s sweeping plan to shrink the size of the federal government. Soon after the president returned to a second term, the agency, which was established in 1961, became subject to a 90-day pause on foreign assistance funding that devastated nonprofit organizations, businesses and aid groups that received grants and other awards from USAID.
DOGE team members also gained access to the agency’s financial and personnel systems, and hundreds of USAID officials were placed on administrative leave. Its website was shut down last month, email accounts deactivated and USAID’s Washington, D.C., headquarters were occupied by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
The unidentified USAID employees and personal services contractors filed their lawsuit against Musk and DOGE in mid-February and argued that Musk’s actions violated the Constitution’s Appointments Clause. The case was one of several filed after DOGE was established that have challenged Musk’s actions and the task force’s access to sensitive federal systems.
Musk’s role within DOGE has been of particular interest, including among federal judges overseeing court fights involving the task force. While Mr. Trump has claimed publicly that Musk leads DOGE, including during his joint address to Congress earlier this month, Justice Department lawyers have argued that he is a senior adviser to the president and does not have formal authority to make government decisions.
Amid repeated questions about who was leading DOGE, the White House revealed last month that Amy Gleason, who worked for DOGE’s predecessor, is its acting administrator.
Chuang, meanwhile, said Musk and DOGE have been behind agency actions throughout the federal government, including at USAID.
He noted that Musk, who is also the CEO of Tesla, appears to have been involved in the closure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau headquarters. He said evidence shows that Musk and DOGE “have taken other unilateral actions without any apparent authorization from agency officials,” including the firings of employees at the Department of Agriculture and National Nuclear Security Administration.
“Under these circumstances, the evidence presently favors the conclusion that contrary to defendants’ sweeping claim that Musk acted only as an advisor, Musk made the decisions to shutdown USAID’s headquarters and website even though he ‘lacked the authority to make that decision,'” Chuang wrote, citing arguments from the Trump administration.
As to USAID, the judge said that the record before the court “does not support the conclusion” that decisions to dismantle the agency by permanently closing its headquarters and taking down its website were made by USAID officials.
“Thus, based on the present record, the only individuals known to be associated with decisions to initiate a shutdown of USAID by permanently closing USAID headquarters and taking down its website are Musk and DOGE team members,” Chuang wrote.
The Constitution’s Appointments Clause in part lays out the methods for appointing officers of the United States, divided into two categories: principal officers, appointed by the president with Senate approval, and inferior officers, who generally do not require Senate confirmation. The challengers in the case argued that Musk was carrying out the functions of an officer without being appointed to that role, thus violating the Appointments Clause.
Chuang agreed. He found that where there is evidence that Musk exercised significant authority reserved for an officer while serving in a continuing government position, the unnamed USAID employees and contractors were likely to win on their argument that he skirted the Appointments Clause.
“The public interest is specifically harmed by defendants’ actions, which have usurped the authority of the public’s elected representatives in Congress to make decisions on whether, when and how to eliminate a federal government agency, and of officers of the United States duly appointed under the Constitution to exercise the authority entrusted to them,” he wrote.
In addition to finding that the dismantling of USAID by Musk and DOGE was likely unconstitutional, Chuang found that they lack authorization by Congress to take steps toward abolishing the agency.
“There is no statute that authorizes the Executive Branch to shut down USAID,” he wrote.
The judge added that Congress alone has the constitutional authority to take action to eliminate agencies it has created.
“Where Congress has prescribed the existence of USAID in statute pursuant to its legislative powers under Article I, the president’s Article II power to take care that the laws are faithfully executed does not provide authority for the unilateral, drastic actions taken to dismantle the agency,” Chuang wrote.
The judge’s opinion warns that there are reasons to be concerned about the potential public disclosure of personal, sensitive or classified information by DOGE team members. He said they “took extreme measures” to gain access to classified information, including in secure facilities, “when there was no identified need to do so,” and when some DOGE staff lacked security clearances.
Chuang cited one USAID employee on administrative leave who reported that DOGE team members who did not have security clearances granted themselves access to restricted areas that required approval.
Melissa QuinnMelissa Quinn is a politics reporter for CBSNews.com. She has written for outlets including the Washington Examiner, Daily Signal and Alexandria Times. Melissa covers U.S. politics, with a focus on the Supreme Court and federal courts.
