A federal appeals court delivered a win to Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency on Friday, ruling that shutting down the headquarters and website of the U.S. Agency for International Development could go forward.
The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said a lower court was wrong to think that it was Mr. Musk who was making final decisions on cuts.
While Mr. Musk operated as a top adviser to President Trump, it was likely Secretary of State Marco Rubio and his team who made the final decisions on USAID — and had the power to do so.
The appeals court said the lower court judge misconstrued news accounts and Mr. Musk’s social media posts to give Mr. Musk more credit than he deserved for the decisions.
And the court said Mr. Musk appears to be operating as an adviser to Mr. Trump and not an independent officer who needs Senate confirmation.
“The current evidence in the record indicates that Musk’s actions did not involve the exercise of authority of an office granted by law but rather the implementation of executive policies,” Judge Marvin Quattlebaum Jr. wrote for the court.
The Trump appointee was joined by Paul Niemeyer, a George H.W. Bush appointee, and Judge Roger Gregory, a Clinton appointee.
Their ruling lifts U.S. District Judge Theodore D. Chuang’s blockade on shutting down USAID’s headquarters.
Judge Chuang had parsed several USAID shutdown decisions and found that many of them were in fact blessed by Mr. Rubio and other officials at the State Department who had the power to carry them out.
But he said the evidence behind the USAID headquarters and website decisions was different.
“Thus, based on the present record, the only individuals known to be associated with the decisions to initiate a shutdown of USAID by permanently closing USAID headquarters and taking down its website are Musk and DOGE team members,” the judge wrote.
The case goes to the heart of questions about Mr. Musk, the world’s richest man and a special assistant to Mr. Trump who is spearheading the president’s attempt to remake the federal bureaucracy.
Justice Department lawyers have denied that Mr. Musk is part of the DOGE, saying that he is instead an influential advisor to the president but wields only soft power and has no actual decision-making authority.
Judge Gregory agreed with the outcome of the case but for different reasons. He said the plaintiffs, several anonymous USAID employees, sued the wrong people.
Judge Gregory’s opinion was full of cautions and scoldings for the Trump team.
“We may never know how many lives will be lost or cut short by the defendants’ decision to abruptly cancel billions of dollars in congressionally appropriated foreign aid,” he said.
He also said that while Mr. Trump may have the power to reorganize USAID, he cannot fully shut down an agency that has been authorized by a law passed by Congress.
“It is clear that the Executive cannot ‘get rid’ of USAID without further congressional authorization, contrary to Defendants’ actions,” Judge Gregory said.
