A federal judge has blocked Elon Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency from accessing Treasury Department records that contain sensitive personal data such as Social Security and bank account numbers for millions of Americans.

A federal judge on Friday declined to block Elon Musk's government cost-cutting department from accessing the U.S. Department of Labor's systems, an initial setback for the government employee unions resisting his efforts to shrink the federal bureaucracy.

A federal judge will consider whether to block Trump adviser Elon Musk’s team from accessing systems at the Labor Department, which has investigated the billionaire’s companies

Representative Ro Khanna has known Elon Musk for more than a decade, so he thought he should raise some concerns about the billionaire’s assault on the federal government where he would be sure to see them.

Democrats saw Donald Trump as the most toxic brand in politics, a singular figure who unified their disparate factions and filled their political coffers with campaign contributions. The limits of that strategy became evident in November.

"Americans need to see the faces and hear the stories of those who have been put on leave at USAID and other agencies," writes one reader.

Elon Musk has said he will rehire an employee of his newly formed Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) who resigned after being linked to a racist social media account. "He will be brought back," Musk posted on X, the social media platform he owns. "To err is human, to forgive divine."