Elon Musk loses in court as judge deems DOGE’s dismantling of USAID to be unconstitutional

Elon Musk’s bid to shut down the US foreign aid agency (USAID) “likely violated the Constitution in multiple ways,” according to a federal judge.

At the beginning of February, Elon Musk, whose Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is leading Donald Trump’s drive to shrink the federal government, announced that work was underway to close USAID – the world’s largest provider of food assistance.

On 1 February, a group of about eight DOGE officials reportedly entered the USAID building and demanded access to every door and floor, despite only a few of them having security clearance, according to a Senate Democratic staff member who spoke to the Washington Post on the condition of anonymity.

It is believed they were trying to access a sensitive compartmented information facility, where officials and government contractors take extraordinary precautions to review highly classified information. The Washington Post also reported that two top security officials at USAID, John Voorhees and his deputy, were put on leave after he and his deputy attempted to prevent the DOGE officials from gaining access.

With a budget of over $50 billion, USAID is one of the largest official aid agencies in the world, and carries out vital disaster relief. Its mission statement reads: “We partner to end extreme poverty and promote resilient, democratic societies while advancing our security and prosperity.”

Musk has previously said that USAID was “beyond repair”. But, on Tuesday (18 March), a federal judge ordered DOGE to stop making further cuts to the agency indefinitely.

‘Not just an advisor to president Trump’

Federal Judge Theodore Chuang also ordered the Trump administration to restore email and computer access to all employees of USAID, including those who were put on administrative leave, news agency AP reported.

Chuang rejected the suggestion that Elon Musk was merely an advisor to Trump, saying the tech billionaire’s social media posts, including one in which he wrote that he’d “fed USAID into the wood chipper”, showed that he had “firm control over DOGE”. 

The judge ruled that the rush to dismantle the agency deprived elected lawmakers of their “constitutional authority to decide whether, when and how to close down an agency created by congress”.

The lawsuit, filed by USAID employees and contractors, “effectively halts or reverses” some of the steps taken to dismantle the agency, lawyers have said. 

The crackdown on foreign aid has already affected UK LGBTQ+ charity Stonewall, with a spokesperson telling PinkNews that it was undergoing an organisation-wide consultation that would result in job cuts. 

The spokesperson added that “hard-won rights [were] being rolled back”. 

Misinformation about USAID has circulated online, with a video shared on 26 February, claiming that it had spent millions to make Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy Time magazine’s Person of the Year in 2022.

A spokesperson for the magazine said the allegations in the video were false. 

Elon Musk also previously tweeted a baseless claim that USAID “funded bioweapon research, including COVID-19, that killed millions of people.”

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