A New York federal judge issued an order blocking DOGE's access to treasury payments after 19 Democratic state attorneys general sued the Trump administration.

One recruit is a computer science student from a top US university who previously interned at Meta and Palantir, the data analytics firm co-founded by Musk ally Peter Thiel. Another was a software engineering intern at Neuralink before being given database access at a federal agency.

Elon Musk has long railed against the U.S. government, saying a crushing number of federal investigations and safety programs have stymied Tesla, his electric car company, and its efforts to create fleets of robotaxis and other self-driving automobiles.