A federal judge on Friday declined to block Elon Musk's government cost-cutting department from accessing the U.S. Department of Labor's systems, an initial setback for the government employee unions resisting his efforts to shrink the federal bureaucracy.

A federal judge will consider whether to block Elon Musk’s team from accessing systems at the Labor Department.

A coalition of mostly Democratic-led U.S. states filed a lawsuit on Friday to stop a Trump administration panel led by billionaire Elon Musk from accessing government systems used to process trillions of dollars in payments.

Friday's lawsuit comes after DOGE employees gained access to data within the Treasury's sensitive payments system.