WASHINGTON — A coalition of labor unions filed a lawsuit Monday asking a federal court to stop Elon Musk’s team from accessing private data at the Education Department, the Treasury Department and the Office of Personnel Management.
The suit, led by the American Federation of Teachers, alleges the Trump administration violated federal privacy laws when it gave Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency access to systems with personal information on tens of millions of Americans without their consent. It was filed in federal court in Maryland.
It’s the latest in a flurry of legal challenges to Musk’s growing influence over federal agencies he has promised to slash or dismantle. A federal judge in New York blocked Musk’s team from a Treasury Department system on Saturday after 19 Democratic attorneys general sued over privacy concerns.
Also Monday, DOGE cut about $900 million in Education Department contracts after concluding they were a waste of taxpayer money, a department spokesperson said. The cuts spanned 90 contracts at the Institute of Education Sciences, a research branch of the federal agency. The department did not immediately release additional details.
The cuts will not affect core operations at IES, including the NAEP exam, known as the nation’s report card, and the College Scorecard, which provides data about the cost and outcomes of U.S. universities, the department said.
The AFT suit warns of safety risks to personal data that has been shared with Musk’s team, including an Education Department system housing information on more than 40 million Americans with federal student loans. The database includes Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers, home addresses and more.
“The Department is effectively one of America’s biggest banks — if there was a breach of this magnitude in the private sector, it would rightly be a national scandal,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the AFT.
The lawsuit accuses the Trump administration of handing over sensitive data for reasons beyond its intended use, allegedly violating the Privacy Act. Instead of carrying out the functions of the federal student loan program, the lawsuit says DOGE has been accessing loan data “for purposes of destroying” the Education Department.
President Donald Trump has vowed to close the Education Department and turn over its authority to states and schools. Musk on his social media site X said Friday that the department “doesn’t exist,” responding to Democrats in Congress who attempted to visit the agency’s headquarters but were turned away by security.
The suit asks a federal court to stop Musk’s team from accessing that data along with Treasury systems and an OPM database with sensitive information on all 2.3 million federal employees. It also seeks the destruction of any records that were already disclosed.
“Steamrolling into sensitive government record systems has led to a massive data breach that threatens to upend how these critical systems are maintained and compromises the safety and security of personal identifying information for Americans all across the country,” according to the suit.
One of the nation’s largest teachers unions, the AFT says it represents 1.8 million workers in education, health care and government. Also joining the suit are six people with sensitive information stored in federal systems, including military veterans who received federal student loans and other federal benefit payments.
The suit also is backed by the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association, and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.
On Friday, a separate lawsuit on behalf of the University of California Student Association asked a federal judge in Washington to halt Musk’s access to Education Department systems. The plaintiffs in that case filed for an emergency restraining order on Monday seeking to block DOGE from sensitive data.
