Criticising the role of Tesla CEO Elon Musk as the head of the new Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE, 14 US states have filed a federal lawsuit.
Among those who filed the federal lawsuit include two governors from the US President Donald Trump's Republican Party.
Musk was accused of being a "designated agent of chaos" whose "sweeping authority" as the DOGE head is in violation of the Constitution of the United States, ABC News reported.
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NY Attorney General Letitia James announces a multi-state lawsuit against DOGE.
“As the richest man in the world, Elon Musk is not used to being told ‘no,’ but in our country, no one is above the law,” said James in a statement, adding that Trump does not have… pic.twitter.com/ERDLknu72Z
"Musk's seemingly limitless and unchecked power to strip the government of its workforce and eliminate entire departments with the stroke of a pen, or a click of a mouse, would have been shocking to those who won this country's independence," read the complaint.
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The lawsuit also added that there is no greater threat to democracy than the accumulation of state power in the hands of a single unelected individual.
The governors pointed out that the Appointments Clause of the Constitution calls for someone with significant and expansive authority to head the department.
Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont, Washington, California, Hawaii, Massachusetts, and Maryland were among the states which filed the lawsuit.
This is not the first time a federal lawsuit has been filed against Musk. Earlier, the Maryland federal court made a similar constitutional claim.
The Constitution prevents the US president from "overriding existing laws concerning the structure of the Executive Branch and federal spending."
Calling Musk ‘far more than an adviser to the White House,’ the states have claimed that DOGE has ‘inserted itself into at least 17 agencies, and called for 'Musk's officer-level governmental actions to date' to be declared ‘unlawful.’
Repeatedly, Trump and Musk have said that DOGE is a department for rooting out vast government waste and potentially even criminal corruption within the agencies.
