Trump signed an executive order on the implementation of DOGE: A joint appearance of the president and the unions in a lawsuit against the Trump administration

The EFF and two labor unions have joined a lawsuit that claims the Trump administration broke the law by allowing workers from the Doge to access information on millions of government workers.

He said that when it came to questions about conflicts of interest, he wasn’t the one filing the contract. It’s people at SpaceX or someone who will be putting the contract.”

Musk spoke for a majority of the roughly 30-minute appearance, donning a trench coat and a black “Make America Great Again” hat. Standing just feet away from the president, who sat behind the Resolute Desk, Musk was asked to respond to critics who argue that he is exercising too much power over the government.

A federal judge in Rhode Island said on Monday that the administration was not in full compliance with an order blocking its efforts to suspend payments for grants and other federal programs.

The Trump administration followed a number of steps in line with Musk’s work. The U.S. Agency for International Development was shut down due to Musk’s budget cuts in the three weeks since Trump was sworn in. The moves have provoked a cascade of legal challenges and sparked uncertainty among federal workers as they await more action by the DOGE effort.

The changes do not apply to military personnel, according to the order, and allow exemptions for positions related to “national security, homeland security, or public safety responsibilities.”

Tuesday’s order provides new details on how government agencies will work with DOGE to reduce the size of the federal workforce, and calls on the heads of federal agencies to “promptly undertake preparations to initiate large-scale reductions in force.” The order did not specify a range of how many workers may be affected and lose jobs.

Trump told reporters that the discovery of Billions and Billions of dollars in waste, fraud and abuse could eventually reach as high as a trillion dollars, with Musk at his side. But the president and Musk offered few specifics on how they were arriving at those estimates.

Their joint appearance came as Trump signed an executive order providing new guidance for federal agencies on the implementation of Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) initiative, a push to cut what Musk and Trump characterize as excessive government spending.

Correction, February 11th: The story earlier named President Donald Trump one of the defendants in the lawsuit. He is not named as a person who is going to be sued.

The White House will continue to fight in court, and they expect to be vindicated, according to the White House Press Secretary. The President has every right to utilize his executive power, since he was given a historic mandate to govern by Americans on November 5th.

Trademark Protection and Privacy in the U.S. Trademark Market: a Global Perspective from Labor and the Center for Digital Privacy and Privacy

Experts fear that increased access to OPM data could cause new vulnerabilities. After all, OPM databases were breached in 2014, resulting in sensitive information on more than 20 million people being compromised.

OPM is already facing a separate lawsuit from labor groups over the Trump administration’s “fork in the road” offer of deferred resignation, which promised payment that Congress had not yet appropriated. The deadline for federal workers to choose to take the offer was put on hold by a federal judge.

The groups argue that DOGE doesn’t have a legitimate need for access to OPM files. They’re asking the US District Court in the Southern District of New York to suspend DOGE staffers’ access to the system, and prevent them from using any information they allegedly illegally accessed already. They also want the court to order any copies of data unlawfully accessed to be destroyed.

is a senior policy reporter at The Verge, covering the intersection of Silicon Valley and Capitol Hill. She spent 5 years at CNBC writing about antitrust, privacy and content moderation reform.