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 different judge temporarily restricted DOGE access to Treasury Department systems that process trillions of dollars in payments per year, limiting access to two employees with “read only” privileges. One of those, Marko Elez, resigned after he was linked to social media posts that espoused racism, but Musk said Friday he is being rehired.