A federal judge found on Monday that Elon Musk’s government-cutting unit is likely subject to public disclosure laws and must promptly turn over documents to a group that had sued for access to its internal emails.
In his order, Judge Christopher R. Cooper of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia wrote that the Department of Government Efficiency Mr. Musk leads had all the hallmarks of an agency that would typically be subject to laws like the Freedom of Information Act. He said Mr. Musk’s team appeared to be exercising “substantial authority over vast swathes of the federal government,” much greater than other federal agencies that are subject to the law.
Judge Cooper required both Mr. Musk’s team and the Office of Management and Budget to turn over email correspondence between their offices that the group suing had requested, and to “begin producing documents on a rolling basis as soon as practicable.”
The lawsuit, brought by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, had asked the court to compel those agencies to turn those records over by Monday, a time frame the judge said was unrealistic. It had argued that the group’s internal records were of extreme interest to the public as Mr. Musk and his associates have planned cuts and layoffs largely in secret while laying waste to vast sections of the federal government.
The group’s lawyers had also expressed alarm about reports that members of Mr. Musk’s team had deleted or failed to preserve encrypted text messages on platforms like Signal and emails sent from personal accounts, in what it described as violations of other federal regulations set by the National Archives and Records Administration.
In his ruling, Judge Cooper noted those concerns, writing that “this evidence gives rise to the possibility that representatives of the defendant entities may not fully appreciate their obligations to preserve federal records.”