WASHINGTON — (AP) — A federal judge said Friday he would not immediately block Elon Musk's team from accessing systems at the Labor Department, which has investigated companies owned by the billionaire adviser to President Donald Trump.
U.S. District Judge John Bates said he had concerns about Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, but the labor unions who sued to stop them haven't yet shown a legal injury.
“Although the court harbors concerns about defendants’ alleged conduct, it must deny plaintiffs’ motion at this time,” Bates wrote.
The Trump administration had agreed earlier this week that DOGE wouldn’t get Labor Department access until a ruling from Bates, an appointee of Republican President George W. Bush.
The group of labor unions had sued to keep DOGE workers out of the Labor Department systems, which contain medical and financial records of millions of Americans, including those who have filed safety complaints about their employers.
The Labor Department also has information about investigations into Musk’s companies such as SpaceX and Tesla, as well as information about competitors' trade secrets, the unions said in their suit.
The Justice Department said there are three DOGE staffers detailed to the Labor Department and reporting to its acting secretary, but they have been made special government employees and would follow the law with any sensitive information about corporations or workers as they carry out their cost-cutting mission.
The suit comes as Musk, the world's richest man, consolidates control over large swaths of the federal government with the blessing of Trump. Musk's DOGE team has gained access to sensitive Treasury Department payment systems, largely dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development and offered financial incentives to millions of federal workers to resign.
“At every step," wrote labor union lawyers represented by the advocacy group Democracy Forward, “DOGE is violating multiple laws, from constitutional limits on executive power, to laws protecting civil servants from arbitrary threats and adverse action, to crucial protections for government data collected and stored on hundreds of millions of Americans.”
The department is home to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which has investigated and fined SpaceX and Tesla in connection with worker safety, the unions said in court documents.
Labor Department leadership told a union member this week that Musk and his team would be visiting and workers should let them do “whatever they ask, not to push back, not to ask questions," the unions wrote.
The Justice Department said there’s no proof of wrongdoing and the judge shouldn’t issue “a sweeping, prophylactic order … based on plaintiffs’ rank speculation that DOL will violate the law.”
A different judge temporarily restricted DOGE access to Treasury Department systems that process trillions of dollars in payments per year, limiting access to two employees with "read only" privileges. One of those, Marko Elez, resigned after he was linked to social media posts that espoused racism, but Musk said Friday he is being rehired.
Thirteen states have also sued over DOGE access to federal payment systems.
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