A US federal judge has ordered the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), headed by Elon Musk, to suspend its dismantling of the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
USAID, responsible for administering civilian foreign aid and development assistance, has faced scrutiny over its role in political influence operations abroad. Musk has accused the agency of directing billions of taxpayer dollars into projects that are either ineffective or detrimental to American interests.
In his ruling on Tuesday, Justice Theodore Chuang of the District of Maryland directed DOGE to restore USAID employees’ access to the agency’s computer systems and prohibited the disclosure of their personal information to the public.
Chuang characterized the ongoing disassembly overseen by DOGE as “likely” infringing on the constitutional principle of separation of powers. While he ordered a pause on the process, he refrained from reversing the terminations of former employees, a request made by the plaintiffs.
State Democracy Defenders Action, the nonprofit representing USAID employees in the case, hailed the ruling as “an important victory against Elon Musk and his DOGE attack,” asserting that Musk’s team is “performing surgery with a chainsaw instead of a scalpel.”
Musk has previously described court rulings obstructing DOGE as “an attempted coup of American democracy by radical left activists posing as judges,” demanding consequences for those who make “truly terrible decisions.”
The rhetoric from Musk and members of the administration of US President Donald Trump has faced criticism from the American Bar Association (ABA), which condemned the government’s “disconcerting pattern” of political attacks on the judiciary and pledged to oppose attempts to “to remake the legal profession” into a domain of compliance.
Appointed by President Barack Obama in 2014, Chuang previously ruled against the Trump administration in cases brought up during his first presidential term. That included the controversial travel ban targeting individuals from Muslim-majority countries and a requirement for women seeking abortion pills to obtain them in person. Both rulings were later overturned by the US Supreme Court.
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