In the days after a federal judge ruled Elon Musk’s dismantling of USAID likely violated the constitution, the world’s richest person issued a series of online attacks against the American judiciary, offered money to voters to sign a petition opposing “activist judges,” and called on Congress to remove his newfound legal opponents from office.
“This is a judicial coup,” Musk wrote on Wednesday, asking lawmakers to “impeach the judges.”
Musk, who serves as a senior adviser to Donald Trump, posted about judges who ruled in opposition to the administration more than 20 times within 48 hours this week on X, the social network he owns, repeatedly framing them as radical leftist activists and seeking to undermine their authority. His denunciations came as his so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) faces sweeping and numerous legal challenges to its gutting overhaul of the government, which has involved firing thousands of workers and gaining access to sensitive government data.
Doge is the subject of nearly two dozen lawsuits, which in some cases have already resulted in judges imposing more transparency on Musk’s initiative or reversing parts of its rapid-fire cuts at federal agencies. The legal pushback poses one of the most significant challenges to Musk’s plans, which for weeks after inauguration day involved operating with expansive powers and little evident oversight.
While Musk posts online, he is also directing some of his immense wealth towards those who support his cause. Musk donated funds to seven Republican members of Congress who called for impeaching judges, the New York Times reported, giving the maximum allowable donation of $6,600 to their campaigns.
Musk also launched a petition on Thursday against “activist judges” via his political action group America Pac, which offered registered voters in Wisconsin $100 if they signed. Musk’s Pac has funneled millions of dollars into the state’s 1 April supreme court race, in which he is backing a former Republican attorney general in another attempt to reshape the country’s courts.
Musk’s campaign against judges has intensified amid a wider clash between the Trump administration and the judiciary over the rule of law following court decisions that pushed back against the administration’s mass deportations of immigrants. It follows longstanding behavior from Trump to rail against judges that have ruled against him in cases concerning his businesses or personal matters.
The White House’s fight with judges escalated to the point where John Roberts, the supreme court chief justice, issued a rare public statement on Tuesday defending the justice system.
“For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” Roberts wrote. “The normal appellate process exists for that purpose.”
Musk responded in a post on X one day later.
“For more than two centuries, there has never such [sic] extreme abuse of the legal system by activists pretending to be judges,” he wrote. “Impeach them.”
Legal pushback against Doge angers Musk
Labor groups, watchdog organizations and former government workers have filed lawsuits in response to Doge’s blitz through federal agencies in late January and February, alleging that Musk’s initiative acted without legal authority and violated laws on privacy and transparency. Although the justice system’s response is not as rapid as the breakneck pace of Doge’s cuts, several of the cases against Musk’s efforts are now beginning to throw up roadblocks for him and his team.
A federal judge in Maryland ruled on Tuesday that Musk and Doge’s shutdown of USAID, the agency that provided the world’s largest single source of humanitarian aid and one of the first in Musk’s crosshairs, was likely unconstitutional. The justice ordered the Trump administration to halt terminations of employees and reinstate their access to certain computer systems. Doge had dramatically taken over the agency in early February and moved to close its operations, which Musk boasted involved “feeding USAID into the wood chipper”.
Judge Theodore Chuang found that Musk’s actions at the agency likely violated the constitution given his role as an unelected adviser who did not undergo Senate confirmation.
Doge faced another setback on Thursday, as a different Maryland district court judge temporarily blocked Musk’s team from accessing Social Security Administration systems. A lawsuit against Doge argued that granting access to millions of people’s personal data at the agency violates privacy laws and represents a security threat. Another district court ruling last week ordered the Trump administration to reinstate probationary workers that were fired en masse at 18 different government agencies, while a separate case compelled Musk’s team to produce internal records about its staff and operations.
As Musk and Trump officials have ramped up their attacks on judges, multiple justices told Reuters earlier this month that US marshals warned them they are facing unusually high threat levels against their personal safety.
Musk calls for impeachment and remaking the judiciary
Musk has reacted to the court decisions with outrage and unsubstantiated accusations that the judges are “rogue activists” who must be stopped, a message also shared by Republican lawmakers and Trump. On X, the Tesla CEO has amplified far-right influencers that have called for impeaching justices or targeted specific judges in posts.
“An activist judge is no judge at all, just someone wearing a costume,” Musk responded to a post from rightwing commentator Matt Walsh that suggested Trump should “go to war against activist judges”.
Musk has also received support from foreign leaders that have attacked their countries’ judiciaries and challenged the rule of law. He responded with a “100” emoji to a post from Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, that claimed “when a strong right wing leader wins an election, the leftist Deep State weaponizes the justice system”. Netanyahu attempted in 2023 to weaken the power of Israel’s judiciary, prompting nationwide protests and fears of a constitutional crisis.
El Salvador, where President Nayib Bukele’s party ousted all supreme court judges in 2021 as human rights groups warned about a slide into authoritarianism, has become a repeated point of comparison for Musk. He retweeted a post from Bukele on Tuesday that claimed the “U.S. is facing a judicial coup” and repeated that language himself in later posts.
In another post, Musk responded “it is the only way” to a failed far-right US congressional candidate who suggested that the country should emulate El Salvador by investigating politicians and impeaching “all corrupt judges”. The former candidate, Valentina Gomez, received media attention last year for a campaign video in which she burned LGBTQ+-themed books with a flamethrower.
Musk, who has met with Bukele and praised his strongman presidency, has also previously suggested he wants to carry out a similar hollowing out of the judiciary.
“The only way to restore rule of the people in America is to impeach judges,” Musk tweeted on 25 February, reposting Bukele. “That is what it took to fix El Salvador. Same applies to America.”
