The Supreme Court handed the Trump administration two victories on Friday in cases involving the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), including giving it access to Social Security systems containing personal data on millions of Americans.
The justices also separately reined in orders seeking transparency at Doge, the team once led by billionaire Elon Musk.
The court’s conservative majority sided with the Trump administration in the first Supreme Court appeals involving Doge. The three liberal justices dissented in both cases.
The Doge victories come amid a messy break-up between the president and the world’s richest man that started shortly after Musk’s departure from the White House and has included threats to cut government contracts and a call for the president to be impeached. The future of Doge’s work isn’t clear without Musk at the helm, but both men have previously said that it will continue its efforts.
In one case, the high court halted an order from a judge in Maryland that had restricted the team’s access to the Social Security Administration (SSA) under federal privacy laws.
“We conclude that, under the present circumstances, SSA may proceed to afford members of the SSA Doge Team access to the agency records in question in order for those members to do their work,” the court said in an unsigned order. Conservative lower-court judges have said there’s no evidence at this point of Doge mishandling personal information.