Elon Musk and his so-called “department of government efficiency”, or Doge, have been ordered by a federal judge to turn over a wide array of records that would reveal the identities of staffers and internal records related to efforts to aggressively cut federal government spending and programs.

US district judge Tanya Chutkan’s order forces Musk to produce documents related to Doge’s activities as part of a lawsuit brought by 14 Democratic state attorneys general that alleges Musk violated the constitution by wielding powers that only Senate-confirmed officials should possess.

Chutkan said in her 14-page decision that she was allowing the state attorneys general to obtain documents from Musk to clarify the scope of his authority, which would inform whether he has been operating unconstitutionally to the extent that Doge’s activities should be halted.

The judge also suggested that the so-called discovery requests, which she limited to only documents and not any depositions, could include the identities of Doge staffers in order to establish the scope of the Doge operation. Chutkan’s order does not apply to Donald Trump.

For weeks, Musk has taken great pains to conceal how Doge operates, starting with his own involvement in the project. Musk himself is a “special government employee”, which the White House has said means his financial disclosure filing will not be made public.

The White House then subsequently said in court filings that Musk was a senior adviser to the president, a designation that it claimed meant Musk had no actual or formal authority to make government decisions, even though it contradicted how Trump had spoken publicly about Musk.

The issue at the center of the lawsuit is a provision of the constitution that says government officials who act and wield power as heads of departments are “principal officers” who can exercise that authority only if first nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate.

Musk’s role has been ambiguous because he is not Senate confirmed but has ordered steep cuts to federal agencies and programs as the titular head of Doge, until his moves precipitated legal claims that threatened to make him vulnerable to constitutional challenges and public records requests.

The White House has also tried to further resist legal discovery about Musk’s activities by citing his senior adviser title to invoke executive privilege protections. But Chutkan found that document requests and written responses were not so broad that it would burden the executive branch.

It is the second setback for Doge in as many days, after another federal judge in Washington DC ruled that it was wielding so much power that its records would likely have to be subject to public records requests.

US district judge Christopher Cooper, citing reporting by the Guardian, said the “unprecedented” authority of Doge and its “unusual secrecy” in how it bulldozed through the federal government meant it needed to go through thousands of pages of documents sought by a liberal watchdog group.