A U.S. judge temporarily limited access to the U.S. Treasury Department’s payments system after a group of unions accused the agency of illegally sharing their members’ information with Elon Musk’s government efficiency group.
U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly on Feb. 6 barred Treasury from providing access “to any payment record or payment system of records maintained by or within the Bureau of the Fiscal Service,” with some exceptions, while she considers the unions’ request for a broader temporary restraining order.
The judge’s order allows “read only” access to two “special government employees” Treasury recently brought in who are tied to Musk’s group, known as DOGE. The two are Tom Krause, the chief executive of Cloud Software Group, and Marko Elez, an engineer who has worked for Musk’s SpaceX and social-media platform X.
They have offices at Treasury, agency email addresses and clearance to access some secure but unclassified Treasury information, Bloomberg previously reported.
