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Democratic attorneys general in several states vowed Thursday to file a lawsuit to stop Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency from accessing federal payment systems containing Americans’ sensitive personal information.
Thirteen attorneys general, including New York’s Letitia James, said in a statement that they were taking action “in defense of our Constitution, our right to privacy, and the essential funding that individuals and communities nationwide are counting on.”
“As the richest man in the world, Elon Musk is not used to being told ‘no,’ but in our country, no one is above the law,” the statement said. “The President does not have the power to give away our private information to anyone he chooses, and he cannot cut federal payments approved by Congress.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday afternoon.
Government officials and labor unions have been among those raising concerns about DOGE’s involvement with the payment system for the federal government, saying it could lead to security risks or missed payments for programs such as Social Security and Medicare.
Also Thursday, a federal judge ordered that two Musk allies have “read only” access to Treasury Department payment systems, but no one else will get access for now, including Musk himself. The ruling came in a lawsuit filed by federal workers unions trying to stop DOGE from following through on what they call a massive privacy invasion.
It was not immediately clear when the Democratic attorneys general will file their lawsuit.
Joining James in the statement were the attorneys general of Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Vermont.
President Donald Trump tapped Musk, the world’s richest man, to shrink the size of the US government.
Democrats have criticized the tech billionaire’s maneuvers, which include the hostile seizure of taxpayer data and the apparent closure of the government’s leading international humanitarian aid agency.
DOGE recently gained access to sensitive payment data within the Treasury Department after Treasury’s acting Deputy Secretary David Lebryk resigned under pressure.
“This level of access for unauthorized individuals is unlawful, unprecedented, and unacceptable,” the attorneys general said. “DOGE has no authority to access this information, which they explicitly sought in order to block critical payments that millions of Americans rely on — payments that support health care, childcare, and other essential programs.”
Democratic members of Congress have expressed similar concerns that Musk, an unelected citizen, wields too much power within the US government and states blatantly on his social media platform X that DOGE will shut down payments to organizations.
Musk has made fun of the criticism of DOGE on X while saying it is saving taxpayers millions of dollars.
DOGE officials sought access to the Treasury payment system to stop money from flowing into the US Agency for International Development, according to two people familiar with the matter. That effort undermines assurances the department has given that it only sought to review the integrity of the payments and had “read-only access” to the system as part of an audit process.
The two people familiar with the matter spoke Thursday to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump’s administration plans to keep fewer than 300 staff at the US Agency for International Development out of the agency’s worldwide total of more than 10,000, four sources told Reuters on Thursday.
Washington’s primary humanitarian aid agency has been a target of a government reorganization program spearheaded by businessman Elon Musk, a close Trump ally, since the Republican president took office on January 20.
The four sources familiar with the plan said only 294 staff at the agency would be allowed to keep their jobs, including only 12 in the Africa bureau and eight in the Asia bureau.
“That’s outrageous,” said J. Brian Atwood, who served as head of USAID for more than six years, adding the mass termination of personnel would effectively kill an agency that has helped keep tens of millions of people around the world from dying.
“A lot of people will not survive,” said Atwood, now a senior fellow at Brown University’s Watson Institute.
The US Department of State did not respond to a request for comment.
With Trump and Musk, the world’s wealthiest man, leveling false accusations that its staff were criminals, dozens of USAID staff have been put on leave, hundreds of internal contractors have been laid off and life-saving programs around the globe have been left in limbo.
The administration announced on Tuesday it was going to put on leave all directly hired USAID employees globally, and recall thousands of personnel working overseas.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio had said the administration was identifying and designating programs that would be exempted from the sweeping stop-work orders, which have threatened efforts around the globe to stop the spread of disease, prevent famine and otherwise alleviate poverty.
Implementing partners of USAID are facing financial trouble on the back of stop-work orders from the State Department.

Merging USAID with State Department
The overhaul will upend the lives of thousands of staff and their families.
The administration’s goal is to merge USAID with the State Department led by Rubio, who Trump has made acting USAID administrator. However, it is not clear that he can merge the agencies unless Congress votes to do so, since USAID was created and is funded by laws that remain in place.
USAID employed more than 10,000 people around the world, two-thirds of them outside the United States, according to the Congressional Research Service (CRS). It managed more than $40 billion in fiscal 2023, the most recent year for which there is complete data.
Sources familiar with events at the agency on Thursday said some workers had begun receiving termination notices.
The USAID website said that as of midnight on Friday, February 7, “all USAID direct hire personnel will be placed on administrative leave globally, with the exception of designated personnel responsible for mission-critical functions, core leadership and specially designated programs.”
It said essential personnel expected to continue working would be informed by Thursday at 3 p.m. EST.
The agency provided aid to some 130 countries in 2023, many of them shattered by conflict and deeply impoverished. The top recipients were Ukraine, followed by Ethiopia, Jordan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, Yemen and Afghanistan, according to the CRS report.