Why privacy laws are the tip of the legal spear against Musk and Trump

What access Elon Musk has to closely-guarded government data – including sensitive information it has collected about and from the American public – is a key battlefront in the ongoing and quickly-moving legal war over how President Donald Trump has sought to drastically transform the federal bureaucracy.

What access Elon Musk has to closely guarded government data – including sensitive information it has collected about and from the American public — is a key battlefront in the quickly moving legal war over how President Donald Trump has sought to drastically transform the federal bureaucracy. Multiple lawsuits accuse the administration of violating privacy law and other protections in allegedly allowing affiliates of the Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency to take control of highly restricted government IT systems. Judges have moved swiftly – sometimes scheduling hearings on just a few hours’ notice – to try to understand what the DOGE affiliates are up to in reaching into the digital infrastructure through which the government carries some of its most fundamental operations. “We don’t have much facts, other than what’s out in the media,” Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly told administration lawyers in a case concerning the government’s system for transmitting trillions of dollars of payments each year. Already, lawsuits have been filed challenging the alleged actions taken by Musk associates to seize the keys of IT systems at the Office of Personal Management, the Treasury Department and the Department of Labor. More litigation may be coming, as DOGE affiliates have also set their sights on sensitive data at several other agencies, including the US Agency for International Development, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which administers the major federal health programs. Democratic attorneys general from a dozen states said Thursday that they also planned to add to the pile of lawsuits. It’s not clear what kind of vetting Musk’s allies – who have been installed at agencies across the federal bureaucracy, usually in a temporary status known as “special government employees” – were subjected to before taking the helm of systems that are usually operated by a small group of career federal employees. The Trump administration has also not been forthcoming about what limits are being placed on the data’s use, even though the systems are typically covered under federal privacy law.