Judge Orders Musk Deposition in Lawsuit Over USAID Dismantling

U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang has ordered Elon Musk and State Department officials to sit for depositions in a lawsuit brought by anonymous USAID employees who say the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency illegally moved to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development. In a ruling Tuesday, Chuang wrote there was "no alternative" to questioning Musk directly after plaintiffs’ attempts to get information from documents and lower‑level officials went nowhere, and he cited earlier findings that Musk made key decisions about USAID despite having no formal authority over the agency. Before the DOGE push, USAID’s 10,000‑strong workforce managed about $43 billion in aid for roughly 130 countries in 2023, and a July study estimated its programs had prevented 91 million deaths over two decades, including 30 million children; the same research warned that pulling it apart could contribute to more than 14 million deaths by 2030, a third of them children under five. The White House referred questions to State, and representatives for Musk, State and DOJ did not respond, though Musk has previously downplayed DOGE as only "somewhat successful" and said he would not take on the project again. The case goes to the core of whether a president’s favored fixer can effectively run a parallel cost‑cutting ministry that overrides agency authority and hollows out a linchpin of U.S. soft power, with potentially catastrophic global health consequences.