Elon Musk Deposition Blocked by Appeals Court in DOGE Fight

A federal appeals court has for now shielded billionaire Elon Musk from being questioned under oath about his role last year in shuttering the US Agency for International Development.

In a 2-1 decision on Wednesday, the US Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit granted the Trump administration’s request to halt a Maryland district judge’s ruling that allowed depositions of Musk and other former top agency officials. The appeals court found the lower court “abused its discretion” in finding that there were no alternatives to gather key information.

The fight over whether Musk can be forced to testify came in a case brought by aid agency employees alleging the world’s richest man went too far exercising executive power when he served in the White House as an adviser to President Donald Trump.

Read More: Elon Musk Can Be Questioned Under Oath in DOGE Case, Judge Rules

The depositions were poised to take place over the next few weeks.

Circuit Judges A. Marvin Quattlebaum Jr. and Paul Niemeyer, appointed by President Donald Trump and former president Ronald Reagan, respectively, sided with the government. Quattlebaum wrote in the majority opinion that it was possible the challengers could prove later that the depositions were appropriate, but hadn’t shown “extraordinary circumstances” yet.

Judge Roger Gregory, appointed through an unusual process by both former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, dissented.

Gregory wrote that his colleagues had ordered “a drastic and extraordinary remedy” to block the depositions of Musk and other officials “who appear to be the only people that can provide the relevant information.”

The Justice Department had argued that there should be a high bar for compelling current or former high-level officials to testify, and that forcing Musk to sit for questioning would intrude on Trump’s ability to perform his duties and raise serious separation-of-powers concerns.

Government lawyers said in court papers that the administration already had turned over a substantial amount of information, describing the evidence-gathering push by the plaintiffs as a “fishing expedition.”

In a Feb. 5 ruling, US District Judge Theodore Chuang overruled the government, finding that “extraordinary circumstances justify” making Musk and two former USAID officials, Peter Marocco and Jeremy Lewin, available to testify.

Although Musk, a major donor to Trump’s re-election campaign, served as the public face of DOGE last year, he wasn’t the office’s formal administrator. In response to earlier legal challenges to Musk’s authority to direct spending cuts and firings, the Justice Department and White House told judges that he didn’t actually have power to order those types of actions.

The chief executive officer of Tesla Inc. and SpaceX left his position in the White House last spring.

In recent weeks, Chuang was one of several judges to order the administration to disclose information about DOGE’s activities.

Chuang previously denied the government’s request to dismiss the lawsuit. Throughout the proceedings in Maryland, the judge has highlighted instances when Musk publicly took credit for closing down the aid agency, including a social media post from February 2025 in which he wrote, “We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper.”

The case is In re: Elon Musk, 26-1160, US Court of Appeals, 4th Circuit.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Zoe Tillman in Washington at ztillman2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Sara Forden at sforden@bloomberg.net

Peter Blumberg, Steve Stroth

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