A federal judge in New York on Saturday issued a preliminary injunction prohibiting Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency from accessing the Treasury Department’s payment system.

U.S. District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer said in an emergency order that DOGE personnel were prohibited from examining the Treasury Department’s records and directed staffers granted access to the system to “destroy any and all copies of material downloaded from the Treasury Department’s records and systems.”

“Irreparable harm” could be risked by DOGE’s ability to access millions of Americans’ sensitive data, including social security numbers and bank account information, Engelmayer said. 

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Engelmayer’s order overrides another federal judge who said Thursday that the two DOGE employees who had eyes on the payments system could maintain their limited access to the records. 

A court hearing has been set for Feb. 14.

The emergency order responded to 19 Democratic attorneys general who sued Trump, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and the Treasury Department for granting limited access to the Treasury Department’s payments system to two DOGE personnel. On the lawsuit are New York, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin.

New York Attorney General Letitia James filed the lawsuit on Friday. 

“Bessent’s implementation of Treasury’s new broader access policy, allowing Musk and his DOGE team to access BFS’s payment systems, was adopted without any public announcement or explanation,” the 19 attorneys general argued. “Defendants have provided no reasons at all to justify the new policy, nor did Treasury conduct a privacy impact assessment prior to implementing the change.”

 In a video message released by her office Friday, James condemned DOGE and Musk, whom she said had illegally obtained access to sensitive information. 

“This unelected group, led by the world’s richest man, is not authorized to have this information, and they explicitly sought this unauthorized access to illegally block payments that millions of Americans rely on, payments for health care, child care and other essential programs,” she said. 

The controversy started after Bessent granted read-only access to his department’s payment portal to two DOGE personnel after they were made Treasury employees and underwent background checks and security clearances. Per DOGE’s mission, Tom Krause and Marko Elez were seeking to examine records in an effort to root out wasteful spending from government agencies and had not revealed the information to anyone outside the Treasury Department, including Musk, per Department of Justice lawyers. 

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According to Musk, “billions of taxpayer dollars to known FRAUDULENT entities are STILL being APPROVED by Treasury.” 

Earlier this week, Washington D.C. federal Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly said Krause and Elez could retain their limited access to the records.