US courts are foiling efforts by the Trump administration to keep under wraps information about the Department of Government Efficiency and the role that Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, played in it during his whirlwind stint with the White House last year.

A New York federal judge last week forced the government to reveal the names of DOGE employees and contractors. Earlier this month, a Maryland judge ruled Musk can’t be shielded from questions about the dissolution of the US Agency for International Development, while a judge in Washington ordered the Justice Department to investigate phone numbers Musk may have used for official business.

Musk, who poured millions of dollars into President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign, served as DOGE’s public face as it orchestrated sweeping US spending cuts and thousands of government layoffs in the first half of 2025. The SpaceX and Tesla Inc. chief executive officer stepped down as a “special government employee” at the end of May.

The administration faced a wave of lawsuits from the start of Trump’s second term seeking to stop or slow down DOGE’s access to government systems and records with sensitive financial or personal data. While many of those cases are over, legal fights have lingered over transparency and whether Musk and DOGE-affiliated staff overstepped.