Current and former employees of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) filed a lawsuit against Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), claiming that Musk should have been first confirmed by the Senate.
The White House has said that Musk is a special government employee, meaning he is not beholden to the same kinds of rules as other federal workers. Early on in his administration, President Donald Trump established DOGE to root out government fraud and waste. Since then, the department has helped to put a halt to numerous programs and departments, including USAID.
In a lawsuit filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, the USAID workers wrote that “in his government role, Defendant Musk exercises an extraordinary amount of power. Indeed, the scope and reach of his executive authority appears unprecedented in U.S. history.”…