• Judge Chuang blocks Musk’s efforts to close USAD.
• Musk’s actions probably violated the US constitution, Chuang says.
• USAID operations disturbed, global relief efforts in chaos.

A federal judge on Tuesday blocked billionaire Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency to take several steps to close the US Agency of International Development and said their efforts to close the foreign support agency probably violated the US Constitution.

In a preliminary decision, US district judge Theodore Chuang in Maryland Musk, ordered an important adviser to President Donald Trump, and the agency’s musk tip to restore access to USAid’s computer systems for his direct and contract employees, including thousands placed on leave.
The order came in response to a lawsuit from current and former USAID employees, one of several currently pending over the rapid dismantling of Washington’s primary humanitarian aid agency.

“Today’s decision is an important victory against Elon Musk and his Doge attack on USAID, the US government and the Constitution,” said Norm Eisen, executive chairman of the State Democracy Defender’s finding, a lawyer representing the 26 anonymous plaintiffs in the case.

Trump told Fox News His administration would appeal the decision.

“I guarantee you that we will appeal it. We have junk judges who are destroying our country,” Trump said at the “Ingraham angle.”

Trump, a Republican, on his first day back in the White House, ordered a 90-day freezer of all American foreign aid and a review of whether assistance programs were in line with his administration’s policy.

Shortly afterwards, Musk and Doge gained access to USAid’s Payment and E email systems, froze many of its payments and told much of its staff that they were placed on leave. On February 3, Musk wrote on X that he had “spent the weekend feeding USAID in Wood Chipper.”

The applicants claimed in their trial on February 13 that Musk seized control of USAID and effectively served as an officer in the United States, violating the constitutional demand that such officers were nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate.

They said Musk and Doge had exceeded the authority of the executive branch of the government by effectively turning off an agency created by Congress.

Chuang, appointed by Democratic President Barack Obama, agreed that Musk and Doge “probably violated the US Constitution in several ways and that these acts not only harmed the applicants but also public interest.”

Musk and DOGE argued in judicial admissions that Musk’s role is strict as an adviser to Trump, and that the agency’s officials, not DOGE, were responsible for acts being contested by the applicants. Chuang found that Musk and Dogge had effectively exercised direct control over the agency.

In addition to ordering them to recover employees’ computer access, he prevented them from revealing sensitive employee information.

Chuang did not block the mass information of most of the USAID’s contracts and staff who have completed much of the agency’s operations around the world and threw global humanitarian relief efforts into chaos. He found that although these terminations probably violated the Constitution, they had been approved by government officials who are not named in the trial.

State Secretary Marco Rubio said last week that the administration scraped more than 80% of USAID programs and cuts most of his staff.

In a separate trial brought by USAID contractors, US district judge Amir Ali in Washington last week ordered the administration to immediately release frozen payments to contractors for previous work, but stopped shortly after ordering it to reintroduce the contracts.

The administration was unable to pay the full amount for the first batch of payments that Ali ordered, a total of about $ 671 million before a deadline of March 10. It has quoted the need for individually reviewing payments. On Monday, Ali ordered the government to give a timetable for when it would make them and all other due payments, which were close to $ 2 billion.