Elon Musk Will Be Deposed Over What He Did With DOGE

Elon Musk will have to testify over his role in shuttering the U.S. Agency for International Development, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang ruled that “extraordinary circumstances justify” compelling Musk and two former USAID officials, Peter Marocco and Jeremy Lewin, to be deposed in a lawsuit. Former USAID employees and contractors are suing Musk, accusing the former head of the Department of Government Efficiency of illegally dismantling the aid agency.

Chuang noted that the government wasn’t giving the plaintiffs access to documents on key decisions on USAID (and who made them), with previous deposition requests going unanswered. The judge also pointed to Musk’s many posts on X bragging about how DOGE shut down USAID, ruling that Musk and the two officials “likely have personal, first-hand knowledge of the facts relevant and essential to the resolution of this case.”

The Justice Department tried to protect Musk from testifying, arguing that forcing him to do so would “intrude on White House activities and the president’s performance of constitutional duties, which triggers significant separation-of-powers concerns.”

Chuang said in his ruling that Musk wasn’t a Cabinet secretary or agency head, so it wasn’t clear that he had legal protection from testifying. The Trump administration also tried to have the employees’ case dismissed, but Chuang rejected that effort over the summer.

According to a study from The Lancet, USAID had prevented an estimated 91 million deaths in the past 20 years, including those of 30 million children under the age of 5. Now, with the agency in shambles, 14 million more people might die by 2030.

Musk may finally face some accountability for closing the agency, even if depositions are usually kept secret from the public.

“Thousands of federal employees—and millions more around the world—have suffered profoundly as a result of Elon Musk and Donald Trump’s callous dismantling of USAID,” said Tianna Mays, legal director for Democracy Defenders Fund, which is representing the former USAID employees. “We look forward to Mr. Musk being compelled to testify so the American people can finally learn how this administration illegally destroyed a congressionally established agency.”