State Attorney General Matt Platkin says that New Jersey joined a coalition of 14 states in filing a lawsuit to stop Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from accessing federal payment systems.

DOGE recently gained access to sensitive payment data within the Treasury Department after Treasury’s acting Deputy Secretary David Lebryk resigned under pressure.

“As the richest man in the world, Elon Musk is not used to being told ‘no,’ but in our country, no one is above the law. [President Donald Trump] does not have the power to give away our private information to anyone he chooses, and he cannot cut federal payments approved by Congress,” the attorneys general wrote in a joint statement.

The statement continued, “This level of access for unauthorized individuals is unlawful, unprecedented, and unacceptable. DOGE has no authority to access this information, which they explicitly sought in order to block critical payments that millions of Americans rely on – payments that support health care, childcare, and other essential programs.”

Democratic members of Congress have expressed similar concerns that Musk, an unelected citizen, wields too much power within the U.S. government and states blatantly on his social media platform X that DOGE will shut down payments to organizations.

Musk has made fun of the criticism of DOGE on X while saying it is saving taxpayers millions of dollars.

The coalition includes the attorneys general of New York, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, Rhode Island, and Vermont.