(AURN News) — A federal judge in Maryland has temporarily barred Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from accessing Social Security Administration (SSA) records containing personal information, creating a setback for the cost-cutting initiative.

Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander issued the temporary restraining order Thursday after unions representing SSA employees raised concerns.

"This Order does not preclude SSA from providing members of the DOGE Team with access to redacted or anonymized data and records of SSA," the order stated.

President Donald Trump has granted Musk and his DOGE team significant latitude to identify and eliminate what they consider wasteful government spending.

DOGE, as the department is commonly known, claims to have saved $115 billion through various measures including "asset sales, contract/lease cancellations and renegotiations, fraud and improper payment deletion, grant cancellations, interest savings, programmatic changes, regulatory savings, and workforce reductions."

The court order represents a major challenge to President Trump's efforts to give Musk's team unrestricted access to federal agency operations and information.

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