DOGE Gains Access to Social Security Data, Tesla's Head of Humanoid Robot Program Exits Company

The US Supreme Court gave the Department of Government Efficiency access to sensitive Social Security information, lifting restrictions a judge said were needed to protect the privacy of millions of Americans.

Over three dissents, the high court on Friday granted a Trump administration request to put US District Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander’s order on hold. The decision lets DOGE, the office once led by Elon Musk, have full access to personally identifiable information in the Social Security Administration database while the case proceeds on appeal.

“Under the present circumstances, SSA may proceed to afford members of the SSA DOGE Team access to the agency records in question in order for those members to do their work,” the court said in a three-paragraph order, which didn’t lay out the majority’s reasoning.

The court’s three liberals — Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson — dissented. In an opinion joined by Sotomayor, Jackson said the court was “creating grave privacy risks for millions of Americans.”

In a separate decision, the high court said a different judge went too far by requiring DOGE officials to testify and produce records to a watchdog group. The order came in a case about whether the DOGE office is covered by US public records laws. The Supreme Court liberals dissented from that decision as well.

The cases are the first Supreme Court clashes involving DOGE, the office set up by President Donald Trump to weed out what he says is wasteful spending across the federal government.

Sensitive Data

Musk recently left his formal government position within the administration and is now publicly feuding with Trump.

In the SSA case, US Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the Supreme Court that “the government cannot eliminate waste and fraud if district courts bar the very agency personnel with expertise and the designated mission of curtailing such waste and fraud from performing their jobs.”

The disputed data includes Social Security numbers, addresses, birth and marriage certificates, tax and earnings records, employment history, and bank and credit card information.

Hollander said two labor unions and an advocacy group for retired people were likely to succeed on their claims that unfettered access would violate the 1974 Privacy Act.

“For some 90 years, SSA has been guided by the foundational principle of an expectation of privacy with respect to its records,” the Baltimore-based judge wrote. “This case exposes a wide fissure in the foundation.”

Hollander’s order allowed DOGE team members access to anonymized data only after completing the type of training and background checks required for SSA employees. She said DOGE employees could get “discrete, particularized and non-anonymized” information if they submitted a written statement explaining why the information was needed and why anonymous data was insufficient.

Hollander also ordered people affiliated with DOGE to delete data they’ve already acquired. The 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals kept Hollander’s order in place on a 9-6 vote.

In her dissent, Jackson said the lower courts had crafted an order “tailored to the needs of the moment.” She said the Supreme Court had “truly lost its moorings” by granting the government’s request without requiring it to show that it was suffering any harm.

“The ‘urgency’ underlying the government’s stay application is the mere fact that it cannot be bothered to wait for the litigation process to play out before proceeding as it wishes,” she wrote.

Democracy Forward, the legal-advocacy group that represented the challengers, said it was a “sad day for our democracy and a scary day for millions of people.”

White House spokesperson Liz Huston hailed the decision. “The Supreme Court allowing the Trump administration to carry out commonsense efforts to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse and modernize government information systems is a huge victory for the rule of law,” she said in an email.

The case is US DOGE Service v. CREW, 24A1122.

--------

Watch Bloomberg Radio LIVE on YouTube

Weekdays 7am-6pm ET

Follow us on X

Subscribe to our Podcasts:

Bloomberg Daybreak

Bloomberg Surveillance

Bloomberg Intelligence

Balance of Power

Bloomberg Businessweek

Listen on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app:

Apple CarPlay

Android Auto

Visit our YouTube channels:

Bloomberg Podcasts

Bloomberg Television

Bloomberg Originals