Twelve attorneys general said Thursday that they will sue to stop the Treasury Department payment systems access given to Elon Musk and his so-called, Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
In a joint statement, the 12 AGs said that the Treasury Department has given DOGE staffers access to sensitive payment systems containing Americans’ personally identifiable information, including state bank account data.
Maine residents have filed data breach complaints related to DOGE's access.
"Our breach notifications go up on our website automatically, usually filed by the business that experienced the breach," a spokesperson for the Maine attorney general's office said. "It would seem some individuals aggrieved by the matter have entered their own breach notifications, but these are not filed by the Treasury Department. We have taken them down but our database usually takes 24 hours to respond."
The AGs hail from Maine, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont.
“As the richest man in the world, Elon Musk is not used to being told ‘no,’ but in our country, no one is above the law," the AGs said. "The President does not have the power to give away our private information to anyone he chooses, and he cannot cut federal payments approved by Congress."
They continued: “This level of access for unauthorized individuals is unlawful, unprecedented, and unacceptable. DOGE has no authority to access this information, which they explicitly sought in order to block critical payments that millions of Americans rely on — payments that support health care, childcare, and other essential programs. In defense of our Constitution, our right to privacy, and the essential funding that individuals and communities nationwide are counting on, we will be filing a lawsuit to stop this injustice.”
On Thursday, U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Ketelly issued an interim order limiting DOGE's access to the payment systems while the case brought Monday by two labor unions and an advocacy group for retired union members proceeds.
Kollar-Ketelly's order states that access will not be granted to anyone except for Tom Krause and Marko Elez, who are special government employees, and regular government employees who need access to do their jobs, according to Public Citizen Litigation Group, which brought the lawsuit on behalf of the three groups.
The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that Elez resigned Thursday after he was linked to a deleted social media account that advocated racism and eugenics.
"Marko Elez, a 25-year-old who is part of a cadre of Elon Musk lieutenants deployed by the Department of Government Efficiency to scrutinize federal spending, resigned after The Wall Street Journal asked the White House about his connection to the account," the Journal reported.
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who had questioned Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent about DOGE's access, told the secretary Friday that his response "did not address questions about whether and under what circumstances" Musk or officials from DOGE have been granted access to the Treasury Department’s highly sensitive payment systems.
"Additionally, new reports suggest that Treasury’s claim in its February 4th letter that access to the data of the payment systems by Tom Krause and other officials affiliated with DOGE was 'currently' on a 'read-only' basis was misleading and evasive," Wyden told Bessent in a letter.
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