Elon Musk has not personally gained access to sensitive personal information in a Treasury Department payments system, a government lawyer said on Wednesday in a hearing that shed new light on Mr. Musk’s aggressive effort to slash government operations.

But the lawyer said two people who are connected with Mr. Musk’s team and now work for the Treasury Department, Tom Krause and Marko Elez, have gained access to the system, which is run by the Treasury Department’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service and handles trillions of dollars in transactions a year.

Mr. Musk, a billionaire, has been given free rein by President Trump to sift through the federal government for operations and spending to cut in the name of his so-called Department of Government Efficiency.

His demand that the initiative’s associates gain access to the system has raised questions about what he wants with the data and prompted a backlash, including a lawsuit filed by unions representing federal workers. They say giving Mr. Musk and his team access to the payment system unlawfully jeopardizes the personal and financial information of millions of people.

At the conclusion of the hearing, the judge, Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the Federal District Court in Washington, said she was inclined to issue a temporary restraining order that would give Mr. Krause and Mr. Elez continued access to the data while barring any more new people getting into the system or any data sharing with people outside the department.

“What you’ve represented, Mr. Humphreys, doesn’t preclude in the future the DOGE people or others to be able to get access to it,” Judge Kollar-Kotelly told the lawyer, Bradley P. Humphreys of the Justice Department.

Suggesting that a short-term order would create time for proper briefings and arguments about whether she should issue a longer-term injunction, she gave both sides several hours to consult and told them to come back to her later on Wednesday with any objections to her plan.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent gave people associated with Mr. Musk’s team access to the system late on Friday after a standoff with a top Treasury official who had resisted allowing them into the system. The official, a career civil servant named David Lebryk, was put on leave and then suddenly retired on Friday after the dispute.

The Trump administration has been opaque about what it intends to do with the system, although the Treasury Department sent a letter to Congress late on Tuesday saying that it would review the system to “maximize payment integrity” and was not stopping or rejecting federal expenditures.

Under grilling by Judge Kollar-Kotelly, Mr. Humphreys also described both Mr. Krause and Mr. Elez as recently hired “special government employees” who now are considered Treasury Department workers.

Mr. Humphreys added that Mr. Elez had “read only” access to the payments database, meaning he can see the records but not alter them, and that he has shared some information from it with Mr. Krause, his supervisor.

The two have most likely discussed the data with others in the Treasury Department, Mr. Humphreys said, but no one else, not even Mr. Musk, who is based in the executive office of the president.