In February, several former USAID officials and contractors filed a lawsuit against Musk and DOGE, accusing them of an “unconstitutional power grab” and characterizing the dismantling of USAID, which was created by Congress, as a violation of the separation of powers. The lawsuit argued that Musk had exercised an unconstitutional level of power “reserved for Senate-confirmed officials within the U.S. government,” Bloomberg noted.
Musk served as a “special government employee” for the first five months of this year, and despite Musk’s (and Trump’s) public rhetoric, the government has maintained that he was not in charge of key policies at DOGE.
Earlier this year, the government attempted to drop the case, but, in August, a Maryland judge ruled that it could continue. Now, at least, the government is hoping to keep Elon off the witness stand.
Bloomberg first noted that the government has now sought a protective order to prevent Musk from testifying. In a motion filed on November 21, the government sought a “protective order to prevent the testimony of Elon Musk”, as well as two other former administration officials, Peter Marocco and Jeremy Levin. The government argues that extraordinary circumstances had to be met before such testimony could be granted. The proposal reads:
As the government understands it, the plaintiffs seek to depose each to determine who made the decision to take certain actions and what is USAID’s current operational status. But long-standing limits on deposing high-level executive branch personnel require plaintiffs to show extraordinary circumstances before they can testify. Because the plaintiff party has not and cannot do so, a protective order is needed.
The government also argued that Musk’s statement “would materially interfere with the activities of the White House and the performance of the President’s constitutional duties, giving rise to significant separation of powers concerns.” Additionally, the government stated that plaintiffs should exercise “full options” before resorting to depositions.
Gizmodo contacted the Trump administration. We also contacted Musk through his startup xAI, but the company responded with an automated message that simply read: “Legacy media lies.”
USAID’s closure has been blamed for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people who depended on the aid program, the majority of whom were children. Meanwhile, Musk has called USAID a “rogue” and “criminal organization.”
Last week, Reuters reported that DOGE was officially dead. The news agency quoted Scott Kupor, director of the Office of Personnel Management, as saying that DOGE no longer “exists,” even though it has a charter that is not scheduled to expire for another eight months. Kupor said that DOGE is no longer a “centralized entity”, and Reuters noted that many former members of DOGE have since moved on to other positions within the government.
The White House and Musk have since come out to deny Reuters’ claims. “As always, this is fake news from @Reuters,” the official DOGE account on X posted on Monday. It says, “President Trump was given a mandate by the American people to modernize the federal government and reduce waste, fraud, and abuse.” “Just last week, DOGE eliminated 78 worthless contracts and saved taxpayers $335M. We’ll be back in a few days with our regularly scheduled Friday update.”
“Reuters lies constantly,” Musk said Tuesday.
Whether DOGE survives or not, the truth of the matter is that it is a terrible, incompetent, and generally stupid organization that might as well die for all the good it has actually done for the American people. After promising to cut trillions of dollars from the federal bureaucracy, Musk delivered little cost-savings and instead helped plunge the federal bureaucracy into chaos during the first part of this year. All the while, DOGE claimed huge savings for the American people, but journalists repeatedly showed that the organization was misrepresenting its activities and that its savings estimates were plagued with rudimentary math mistakes. A recent report revealed that DOGE has wasted billions of dollars while saving only a small fraction of what it claimed.
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