A federal judge in Maryland has granted two unions and a retiree advocacy group a preliminary injunction blocking the Social Security Administration from giving Elon Musk’s "department of government efficiency" access to any SSA system containing personally identifiable information.
The preliminary injunction issued by U.S. District Court Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander on April 17 orders DOGE and its team members and affiliates to disgorge and delete all nonanonymized PII data in their possession or under their control. It also blocks them from installing any software on SSA devices and information systems and to remove any software previously installed since Jan. 20.
In addition, it forbids them from accessing, altering or disclosing any SSA computer or software code.
The order supersedes the temporary restraining order Hollander issued March 20.
The motions to block DOGE follow a lawsuit filed March 7 by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees; AFL-CIO; American Federation of Teachers; and Alliance for Retired Americans. In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs alleged that the Social Security Administration abandoned its commitment to maintaining the privacy of personal information provided to the agency by millions of Americans.
"This is an important ruling that upholds our grave concern that millions of Americans have had their private information and retirement security violated by Elon Musk’s illegal actions," AFT President Randi Weingarten said in a news release April 17. "It stops, for now, the exploitation of data by an unelected billionaire who want to weaponize it or use it for his and others’ personal ends."
DOGE and its team members and affiliates must file a status report by April 23 documenting the actions they have taken to comply with the order, including a certification that they will not have access to any SSA records unless they have completed a background investigation and received the training that is typically required of individuals granted access to SSA data systems.
"We will appeal this decision and expect ultimate victory on the issue," said Liz Huston, a White House spokesperson in the Social Security press office, in a statement. "The American people gave President Trump a clear mandate to uproot waste, fraud and abuse across the federal government. The Trump administration will continue to fight to fulfill the mandate."
The lawsuit was filed against SSA acting Commissioner Leland Dudek and Chief Information Officer Michael Russo as well as Musk, the de facto head of DOGE, and Amy Gleason, DOGE’s acting administrator. The suit also named the U.S. DOGE Service and the U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization as defendants.
