Elon Musk has criticized a federal judge as a "junky jurist" for restoring the federal government's web pages on sexually transmitted diseases and other topics, amid the Trump administration's fight against what it sees as "gender ideology."
"Truly absurd," the Tesla CEO and director of the cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency wrote of the move by Judge John Bates. "Judges as website editors!? We should at least ATTEMPT to fire this junky jurist."
Newsweek sought email comment on Wednesday from Judge Bates, the Department of Government Efficiency, the Office of Personnel Management, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Why It Matters
Doctors argue in court documents that if President Donald Trump's administration succeeds in its deletion of thousands of pages of gender-related medical advice from the CDC website, it would have a massive effect on public health, including on the spread of sexually transmitted diseases among the general public.
What To Know
The dispute about the web pages stems from Trump's vow to fight "gender ideology" in the federal government. On January 29, 2025, Trump's Office of Personnel Management issued a memorandum to all agencies titled "Initial Guidance Regarding President Trump's Executive Order Defending Women".
The office ordered all federal agencies to "take down all outward facing media (websites, social media accounts, etc.) that inculcate or promote gender ideology," "withdraw any final or pending documents, directives, orders, regulations, materials, forms, communications, statements, and plans that inculcate or promote gender ideology," and "ensure that all applicable agency policies and documents, including forms, use the term 'sex' and not 'gender.'"
In response to the memorandum, the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration removed large numbers of webpages and datasets that used the word "gender" instead of "sex."
On February 4, a medical group named Doctors for America filed an 18-page lawsuit over the Trump administration's removal from the CDC and FDA websites of "a broad range of health-related data and other information used every day by health professionals to diagnose and treat patients and by researchers to advance public health."
On February 11, Washington D.C. federal judge John Bates, a George W. Bush appointee, agreed to impose a temporary restraining order on the CDC and ordered that any deleted webpages be restored.
In so doing, he heavily criticised government lawyers for suggesting that anyone who wished to read the deleted pages could simply use the Wayback Machine, a website that tracks the history of web pages and any changes made to them.
He said this was a completely impractical solution that didn't serve the needs of doctors or the general public.
What People Are Saying
Elon Musk wrote on his social media website, X, formerly Twitter, on Tuesday: "Truly absurd. Judges as website editors!? We should at least ATTEMPT to fire this junky jurist. The notion of having a judge job for life, no matter how bad the judgments, is ridiculous! Enough is enough."
Musk was using the alliterative phrase "junky jurist" to suggest Judge Bates' ruling was junk and there is no suggestion of substance abuse by Judge Bates.
In his comments on X, Musk linked to a posting by Republican Utah Senator Mike Lee, who wrote: "These judges are waging an unprecedented assault on legitimate presidential authority, all the way down to dictating what webpages the government has. This is absurd."
In his ruling, Judge John Bates wrote that one of the doctors who took the case to restore the web pages, identified only as Dr Liou, is suffering real harm as a result of their deletion.
"It is not merely that the lack of information makes it harder for her to do her job.
"Dr. Liou cannot effectively do her job to address a 'time-sensitive' chlamydia outbreak that is happening now," he wrote.
What Happens Next
Bates' temporary restraining order will restore the medical web pages until he conducts a full hearing into the facts of the case.
The Trump administration will likely appeal Bates' decision to a higher federal court.
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About the writer
Sean O'Driscoll is a Newsweek Senior Crime and Courts Reporter based in Ireland. His focus is reporting on U.S. law. ... Read more