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A New York Federal Judge temporarily blocked Elon Musk and his team to access data from the Payments of the US Treasury Department, warning that this was likely to lead to the disclosure of sensitive information.
The order issued on Saturday morning brought a new legal blow to the billionaire of technology and the pressure of its nearest allies to comb federal payments in order to reduce the costs of the United States government.
The court’s decision came in response to a judicial dispute of 19 prosecutors general of the Democratic State, which argued that the unofficial unity of “the Ministry of Effectiveness of the Government”, which was created by President Donald Trump should not have access to personal information relating to millions of Americans.
In the court order, judge Paul Engelmayer of the South District of New York wrote that the “new policy” presented a risk of “disclosure of sensitive and confidential information” and a “increased risk that the systems in question be more vulnerable than before “hacking”.
He ordered that “appointments, special government employees and any government employee” outside the US Treasury are prevented from accessing the agency data and destroying any information they had obtained from the ‘Trump inauguration last month.
The order should remain in place at least up to a court hearing which was set for February 14.
Musk retaliated, accusing Engelmayer of being “an activist pretending to be a judge” on his social media platform X.
He was also unleashed in Daniel Goldman, a member of the New York Democrat Congress, who demanded that Musk confirm that he would comply with the court order and destroy all the data that his team has acquired.
“We do not have personal data on the Americans, you corrupt the moron,” wrote Musk on X, responding to Goldman.
The lawyers who brought the case said that the order was an important victory. “Now, Americans can trust this musk – the richest man in the world – and his friends will not freely reintegrate their personal information while our trial takes place,” said Letitia James, the Attorney General New York, in a press release.
The judge’s ordinance underlines how Trump’s great growth and musk to selectively reduce public spending is faced with its greatest obstacles to court, because the administration tests the limits of executive power as well as American laws on life .
Earlier this week, a federal judge of the Columbia district judged that foreigners should not have access to the data of the payments of the Treasury, in response to a separate legal challenge brought by representatives of pensioners and government employees.
The White House tried to repress the fears that Musk, who was appointed “a special government employee”, manages a thug operation. But the Democrats are increasingly sounding alarms on the activities of his “Doge”.
“Doge’s actions represent an invasion of two front security and privacy foreheads of the Americans,” wrote Ron Wyden, the best democrat of the Senate Finance Committee, in a letter to the acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration , which manages government pensions for millions of people from the Americans.
The Treasury Department did not immediately respond to a request for comments.
