Musk, DOGE won't release public records, nonprofit says

SAN FRANCISCO (CN) — Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) won’t turn over communications between Musk and his staff, even though those communications are public records under the Freedom of Information Act, the First Amendment Coalition, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting free speech, said in a lawsuit Friday.

The 13-page complaint, filed in the Northern District of California, follows a Feb. 25 FOIA request from the First Amendment Coalition seeking all electronic communications between Musk and DOGE employees since Inauguration Day on Jan. 20.

The First Amendment Coalition and its co-plaintiff, MSW Media, say DOGE has not responded to the requests as required by the Freedom of Information Act. They want the court to force DOGE to comply with the landmark transparency law.

“The American people have the right to know how the richest man in the world has come to wield such enormous power and influence within the federal government," FAC Executive Director David Snyder said in a statement announcing the lawsuit Friday morning. “The public deserves — and FAC is demanding — answers.”

Shortly after Donald Trump’s presidential election victory in November, billionaire magnate Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy said that Trump had asked them to take over the U.S. Digital Service (USDS). That agency has since been renamed and transformed into a nebulous organization called the Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE — a backronym for an internet meme and cryptocurrency with which Musk is affiliated.

As leader of that group, Musk vowed to reshape the federal government and cut wasteful spending, including by laying off federal workers. He has attempted to dissolve institutions like the U.S. Agency for International Development, which provides humanitarian relief to countries recovering from national disasters.

But the details of DOGE’s internal operations remain largely unknown, and the agency won’t respond to lawful public records requests, the First Amendment Coalition says in their complaint.

DOGE’s operations are so opaque, FAC says, that officially, there is even dispute over who is running it. In its suit, the group notes that while “the White House has filed documents in litigation contending that Amy Gleason is the Acting USDS Administrator, all evidence points to Musk actually running USDS in practice if not in formal name.”

The group points to several instances in which Trump referred to Musk as the head of DOGE. That includes a Feb. 22 Truth Social post where Trump wrote that “ELON IS DOING A GREAT JOB, BUT I WOULD LIKE TO SEE HIM GET MORE AGGRESSIVE.”

“Despite this public trail clearly identifying Musk as the head of USDS, the Director of the EOP Office of Administration has, under penalty of perjury, stated that Musk is merely a ‘Senior Advisor to the President’ and is ‘not an employee of the U.S. DOGE Service or U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization,’” the plaintiffs say.

They also claim that Gleason — in a separate case against the agency — signed a declaration that Musk does not work for DOGE and that she does not report to him. Those declarations “have been made in bad faith to insulate Musk from any accountability or transparency as the head of USDS,” the plaintiffs say.

Appearing in previous suits against DOGE, government lawyers have argued that DOGE is not subject to FOIA laws because it operates as a “component” of the executive office of the President rather than an independent agency.

Friday’s lawsuit challenges this claim, asserting that DOGE exercises substantial authority separate from the president and that Musk plays a central role in its operations.

The plaintiffs are represented in the case by Kel McClanahan of National Security Counselors, a legal firm focused on government reform and transparency.

“Whether it’s discussing a bombing run in a Signal group or playing musical office suites in a vain attempt to avoid FOIA, the Trump administration has unequivocally demonstrated that they are pathologically allergic to accountability and transparency,” McClanahan said in a statement. “Our goal is to send a message for once and for all that running the federal government is not a game.”

Musk does not yet have counsel representing him in the case.

Friday’s case was assigned to U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Hixson in San Francisco, but the case may be reassigned.

Several other groups have challenged the legality of actions that DOGE and Musk have taken since its formation. Last week, a judge in Maryland denied the department from accessing the sensitive personal data of about 2 million union members, student loan recipients and veterans. Others have sued DOGE and the Trump administration over the firing of federal workers.