President Donald Trump, tech billionaire Elon Musk, and the Department of Government Efficiency have found themselves in the crosshairs of at least 14 states that have filed a lawsuit, claiming their efforts to cut government spending are unconstitutional.
The lawsuit is being led by New Mexico, which alleges in the suit that Musk’s role as the head of DOGE violates the Appointments Clause of the Constitution since his role was never confirmed by the Senate.
“Mr. Musk’s seemingly limitless and unchecked power to strip the government of its workforce and eliminate entire departments with the stroke of a pen or click of a mouse would have been shocking to those who won this country’s independence,” the states wrote.
“There is no office of the United States, other than the President, with the full power of the Executive Branch, and the sweeping authority now vested in a single unelected and unconfirmed individual is antithetical to the nation’s entire constitutional structure,” they continued.
Among the states to join New Mexico on the lawsuit are Arizona, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington.
The states are looking to prevent Musk and his aides from making changes to how public funds are distributed, whether or not government contracts should be upheld, oversight on regulations and personnel, and from receiving access to or altering the nation’s data systems.
“Our constitutional order was founded in part to guard against the accumulation of state power in the hands of a single individual, and while that construction was first focused on the abuse of power of an 18th-century monarch, it is no less dangerous in the hands of a 21st-century tech tycoon,” New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez said on a press call.
This isn’t the only lawsuit to be filed against Musk in the last week, as current and former employees of the United States Agency for International Development, USAID, also filed a lawsuit in which they raised similar arguments.
Earlier this month, Musk and his team pushed for USAID to be shut down, leading to Trump dismantling the foreign aid agency and having its remnants absorbed by the State Department.
The actions saw the flow of foreign aid halted and thousands of people working for the agency abroad and at home laid off.
However, the lawsuit and other legal challenges have paused any serious action from being finalized.
Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee, moved to block this effort through a temporary restraining order that pauses the firing of 2,200 workers and plans to withdraw almost all of its overseas employees within 30 days.