The Supreme Court announced on Tuesday that it would review a long-running dispute over how much information the Department of Government Efficiency formed by Elon Musk must disclose in response to public records requests.
In the early days of President Trump’s second term, Mr. Musk’s initiative, known as DOGE, swept through federal agencies seeking to overhaul the government bureaucracy and fire scores of workers. Mr. Musk eventually departed last year amid declining influence and friction with the president and after failing to deliver on promised cuts to the budget.
But a nonprofit watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, has continued to press for information about the entity’s operations. The group known as CREW had filed an expedited request for records under the Freedom of Information Act. After it did not receive the records, the group filed a lawsuit, saying DOGE had violated public records laws.
The justices are expected to schedule the matter for oral arguments early next year and to issue a decision in the case before their new term ends in late June or early July. It is one of several cases before the Supreme Court testing the Trump administration’s policies.
At issue in the case will be whether the quasi-private entity is similar to other federal agencies, which are generally subject to federal public records laws. The administration has argued it is instead more like presidential advisory groups, which are able to keep more information private.
A federal judge in Washington, Christopher R. Cooper, concluded last year that Mr. Musk’s group was likely subject to the records law and ordered it to turn over the documents during the lawsuit discovery process. A three-judge panel on a federal appeals court agreed.
The case previously reached the Supreme Court on a temporary and emergency basis last year. In June 2025, the justices paused CREW’s discovery request, blocking the group from getting DOGE’s records and sending the case back to the lower courts for more litigation and discussion over how to narrow the set of records that Mr. Musk’s group was required to turn over.
The justices at that time were divided along ideological lines, with the conservative majority saying that “separation of powers concerns counsel judicial deference and restraint in the context of discovery regarding internal executive branch communications.”
The three liberal justices noted their dissent. The new case will resolve the legal issues in a more lasting way.
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