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.

Tom Krause, a Silicon Valley executive with ties to DOGE, will become the fiscal assistant secretary of the Treasury Department, the people said. He replaces David A. Lebryk, who resigned after objecting to Krause’s demands to stop payments on foreign aid — a measure Lebryk resisted as illegal.