The world’s richest man has accused the federal judiciary of staging a “coup” after it blocked his outside task force from accessing sensitive personal and financial data for millions of Americans.
“Democracy in America is being destroyed by judicial coup,” Elon Musk wrote on his social media platform X. “An activist judge is not a real judge.”
“We are witnessing an attempted coup of American democracy by radical left activists posing as judges!” he wrote in another post.
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The accusations came soon after a federal judge refused to lift a temporary restraining order barring Musk’s “department” of government efficiency—or DOGE—from accessing the Treasury Department’s federal payments system.
During his first month in office, President Donald Trump has signed a flurry of executive orders freezing federal spending, suspending birthright citizenship—which is enshrined in the Constitution—and giving the Musk-led DOGE free reign to “audit” trillions of dollars in payments.
More than 40 lawsuits have been filed challenging the orders, many of which have been paused as the courts review claims they violate federal laws and the constitutional separation of powers, according to the New York Times.
DOGE in particular is the subject of several suits after it tried to purge the civil service, cancel hundreds of millions of dollars in government contracts and shutter entire federal agencies, all without congressional oversight or approval.
Musk previously accused the judge who issued the temporary restraining order of being “corrupt.” Now, he’s apparently equating a legal review of Trump’s executive orders with the violent overthrow of the entire administration.
Of course, the federal judges were all nominated by sitting presidents of both political parties and confirmed by Congress. Musk and his small band of DOGE minions were very much not.
