Elon Musk must defend himself against a lawsuit alleging that he unlawfully seized too much power as the leader of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a judge ruled Monday.
According to the plaintiffs, Musk needed Senate confirmation before directing DOGE on drastic actions like eliminating agencies, mass firings, and steep budget cuts. Allegedly going far beyond the authority granted in President Donald Trump’s most expansive DOGE executive orders, Musk took every inch of power granted and then increasingly used it to overreach unlike any presidential advisor who came before, the suit says.
In her opinion partly denying a motion to dismiss, US District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan did not buy the US government’s defense that Musk held no office formally established by law—and therefore did not need Senate confirmation and cannot be alleged to have exceeded his authority under the Constitution’s Appointments Clause.
“Nobody thinks, for instance, that the White House Chief of Staff or White House Counsel are officers in any fashion, despite the fact they may exercise tremendous influence across the government,” the government’s motion to dismiss said.
Chutkan called the defense “disquieting.” “Defendants appear to make the extraordinary argument that an individual who holds an important office and wields immense power is not subject to the Appointments Clause so long as the office was unlawfully created, and the power was unlawfully seized,” Chutkan said.
can’t put the genie back in the bottle, our data has been stolen
NeonEvangelion on
Hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost because of the USAID cuts. A great deal of this damage is irreversible.
Randall_McRandall on
Somewhere, Susan Collins finds this troubling.
literallytwisted on
If by “Undone” you mean get back classified information including the entire US populations personal data from Russia then no.
If you mean bring back departments that Musk illegally interfered with then I guess? Sorta. Musk and DOGE should be tried for their crimes against us too.
Koochikins on
Jobs lost, funding gone, data sent to who knows, and many other things can’t be undone.
defiant-raven on
He’ll likely just get pardoned as a ‘patriot’ unless the bromance has cooled.
Turlast on
DOGE was completely useless and horrible. People were crying inside their offices while the DOGE cretins were having a good time. Makes me sick to my stomach to think about.
TheGOPisTheDeepState on
What about 600K+ dead from the DOGE cuts? Can those be undone? Nope, it’s genocide and they need to be held accountable.
VideoGameDevArtist on
I’m 100% certain they kept all the data tagged and organized properly during the extraction. Putting it back should be a breeze, there’s no possible way their junior developer team deleted things they thought weren’t needed, right? What even is DEI anyway? /s
arkencode on
You call that work?
fairoaks2 on
DOGE programmed back doors into every system people stopped me on the street to say. Isn’t that the way to say it? Oh yea thank you sir.
/s
LingonberryHot8521 on
Work is NOT a synonym for damage.
ithink2mush on
“work” seems like a stretch. Maybe “sabotage” or “meddling” or “crimes” would be better?
M56_G78_H45 on
They spent the money. And the institutional knowledge has moved on, unfortunately. People are not going to just trust government jobs for awhile.
EarlGrey1806 on
One of his DOGE boys downloaded the SS numbers of all US citizens on a hard drive for unknown reasons.
gdg6 on
The monkey doesn’t go back in the bottle
Zest724 on
I’m looking forward to reading a headline that says “All of DOGE’s work is undone and Musk forfeits his fortune in reparations.”
Raspberries-Are-Evil on
It can take years to get USAID alone back functional.
Epistatious on
guess that is america now, when you mean “crimes”, you say “work”.
“All of DOGE’s work…”
Eli_Yitzrak on
Can Unsteal the data, not going to be able to fix the backdoors they left. The destruction of the integrity of the data the Federal Government uses is total, complete, and irreversible
DarkeyeMat on
Yeah? Neat. Can’t undo the tens of thousands of dead children though can they? Can’t undo financial pain of the tens of thousands of workers who lost jobs because of those pieces of shit.
Can’t bring back the tens of thousands of scientists and science projects which failed or have left the US which will cause a dark age for this country for the next 50 years.
So great, undo the obviously illegal shit which should never have happened and watch Trump simply say no and not restore anything so every head in the sand dimwit can clearly see that it is time to get to the business of being a house divided.
Because if these pieces of trash do not go to prison for the death they wrought illegally then there is no justice.
Mastuh on
Can’t unfuck the pig, it’s already done
BriefFisherman8771 on
What work… oh you mean crimes? 🤗
Bugger9525 on
Im sure much of what was destroyed wasn’t documented. The human resources along with the tribal knowledge they took with them cannot be reversed.
Crafty_Ish1973 on
Elon should be required to personally pay back the full funding for every agency he cut and every person who was fired. He’s got enough to cover it.
AbleCap5222 on
What? What is this FUCKING DRIVEL from arstechnica – I thought they were once respected.
DOGE had one purpose, to steal the social security number and as much useful private information of every American as possible. We know for a fact they have every single taxpayers SSN and corresponding tax/income data. They absolutely have all information on who gets government assistance, Medicare/Medicaid , SSI disability, food stamps, tanf etc.
Every single American has been compromised already.
The “work” ARS is referencing was a DISTRACTION.
AcanthisittaNo6653 on
DOGE drained the government’s brain trust with their firings. It will be decades before competence returns.
AdHopeful3801 on
A lot of people will still be dead.
hussainhssn on
They fucked over so many innocent people, we need punishment for everyone involved in this charade if there is to be any sort of justice. And I’m not talking about fines, either.
CanaDoug420 on
That’s not true. No lawsuit is going to bring back all the people they killed. And your information will remain stolen
challam on
DOGE’s “work”
FTFY
3xtraction on
What work?
curiousleen on
Until all of his wealth is confiscated and used to invest in Americas schools and hospitals and he is sitting in a prison cell, justice will remain elusive.
SmackedWithARuler on
What work? Work denotes something with a tangible result in line with the intention, no?
Don’t they just fail to do what they said they would while data mining the American public?
How the gonna undo that?
Cinder_Gimbal on
The whole DODGE “team“ should be financially reliable for the damages.
qubedView on
How? Is the court going to order something the administration will ignore?
OneEquivalent5236 on
“work”
Dat_Harass on
Gonna get that stolen data back too? Undo whatever they did yes… fine the shit out of Elon and then let the law have their way with all of them. Do be careful they don’t buy or coerce their way out of it.
jvn1983 on
What work? They just took data and killed a bunch of people by arbitrarily cutting grants.
40 Comments
Elon Musk must defend himself against a lawsuit alleging that he unlawfully seized too much power as the leader of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a judge ruled Monday.
According to the plaintiffs, Musk needed Senate confirmation before directing DOGE on drastic actions like eliminating agencies, mass firings, and steep budget cuts. Allegedly going far beyond the authority granted in President Donald Trump’s most expansive DOGE executive orders, Musk took every inch of power granted and then increasingly used it to overreach unlike any presidential advisor who came before, the suit says.
In her opinion partly denying a motion to dismiss, US District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan did not buy the US government’s defense that Musk held no office formally established by law—and therefore did not need Senate confirmation and cannot be alleged to have exceeded his authority under the Constitution’s Appointments Clause.
“Nobody thinks, for instance, that the White House Chief of Staff or White House Counsel are officers in any fashion, despite the fact they may exercise tremendous influence across the government,” the government’s motion to dismiss said.
Chutkan called the defense “disquieting.” “Defendants appear to make the extraordinary argument that an individual who holds an important office and wields immense power is not subject to the Appointments Clause so long as the office was unlawfully created, and the power was unlawfully seized,” Chutkan said.
Full article: [https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/all-of-doges-work-could-be-undone-as-lawsuit-against-musk-proceeds/](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/all-of-doges-work-could-be-undone-as-lawsuit-against-musk-proceeds/)
can’t put the genie back in the bottle, our data has been stolen
Hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost because of the USAID cuts. A great deal of this damage is irreversible.
Somewhere, Susan Collins finds this troubling.
If by “Undone” you mean get back classified information including the entire US populations personal data from Russia then no.
If you mean bring back departments that Musk illegally interfered with then I guess? Sorta. Musk and DOGE should be tried for their crimes against us too.
Jobs lost, funding gone, data sent to who knows, and many other things can’t be undone.
He’ll likely just get pardoned as a ‘patriot’ unless the bromance has cooled.
DOGE was completely useless and horrible. People were crying inside their offices while the DOGE cretins were having a good time. Makes me sick to my stomach to think about.
What about 600K+ dead from the DOGE cuts? Can those be undone? Nope, it’s genocide and they need to be held accountable.
I’m 100% certain they kept all the data tagged and organized properly during the extraction. Putting it back should be a breeze, there’s no possible way their junior developer team deleted things they thought weren’t needed, right? What even is DEI anyway? /s
You call that work?
DOGE programmed back doors into every system people stopped me on the street to say. Isn’t that the way to say it? Oh yea thank you sir.
/s
Work is NOT a synonym for damage.
“work” seems like a stretch. Maybe “sabotage” or “meddling” or “crimes” would be better?
They spent the money. And the institutional knowledge has moved on, unfortunately. People are not going to just trust government jobs for awhile.
One of his DOGE boys downloaded the SS numbers of all US citizens on a hard drive for unknown reasons.
The monkey doesn’t go back in the bottle
I’m looking forward to reading a headline that says “All of DOGE’s work is undone and Musk forfeits his fortune in reparations.”
It can take years to get USAID alone back functional.
guess that is america now, when you mean “crimes”, you say “work”.
“All of DOGE’s work…”
Can Unsteal the data, not going to be able to fix the backdoors they left. The destruction of the integrity of the data the Federal Government uses is total, complete, and irreversible
Yeah? Neat. Can’t undo the tens of thousands of dead children though can they? Can’t undo financial pain of the tens of thousands of workers who lost jobs because of those pieces of shit.
Can’t bring back the tens of thousands of scientists and science projects which failed or have left the US which will cause a dark age for this country for the next 50 years.
So great, undo the obviously illegal shit which should never have happened and watch Trump simply say no and not restore anything so every head in the sand dimwit can clearly see that it is time to get to the business of being a house divided.
Because if these pieces of trash do not go to prison for the death they wrought illegally then there is no justice.
Can’t unfuck the pig, it’s already done
What work… oh you mean crimes? 🤗
Im sure much of what was destroyed wasn’t documented. The human resources along with the tribal knowledge they took with them cannot be reversed.
Elon should be required to personally pay back the full funding for every agency he cut and every person who was fired. He’s got enough to cover it.
What? What is this FUCKING DRIVEL from arstechnica – I thought they were once respected.
DOGE had one purpose, to steal the social security number and as much useful private information of every American as possible. We know for a fact they have every single taxpayers SSN and corresponding tax/income data. They absolutely have all information on who gets government assistance, Medicare/Medicaid , SSI disability, food stamps, tanf etc.
Every single American has been compromised already.
The “work” ARS is referencing was a DISTRACTION.
DOGE drained the government’s brain trust with their firings. It will be decades before competence returns.
A lot of people will still be dead.
They fucked over so many innocent people, we need punishment for everyone involved in this charade if there is to be any sort of justice. And I’m not talking about fines, either.
That’s not true. No lawsuit is going to bring back all the people they killed. And your information will remain stolen
DOGE’s “work”
FTFY
What work?
Until all of his wealth is confiscated and used to invest in Americas schools and hospitals and he is sitting in a prison cell, justice will remain elusive.
What work? Work denotes something with a tangible result in line with the intention, no?
Don’t they just fail to do what they said they would while data mining the American public?
How the gonna undo that?
The whole DODGE “team“ should be financially reliable for the damages.
How? Is the court going to order something the administration will ignore?
“work”
Gonna get that stolen data back too? Undo whatever they did yes… fine the shit out of Elon and then let the law have their way with all of them. Do be careful they don’t buy or coerce their way out of it.
What work? They just took data and killed a bunch of people by arbitrarily cutting grants.