Another day, another federal employee cut
According to reports, more than 20 employees of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency have quit, adding to Washington’s personnel problems.
The head of DOGE has been taking Donald Trump’s call to be “more aggressive” seriously. After dismantling agencies like USAID, he has now ordered federal employees to resume in-office work and sent an email to over 2.3 million employees asking, “What did you do last week?”
Following directives from agencies such as the FBI to disregard Musk’s email, the tech tycoon sent out a new ultimatum, promising to give federal employees another chance to respond.
According to the Associated Press, more than 20 DOGE employees have quit in a spectacular manner and expressed their views.
Engineers, data scientists, designers, and product managers were among the 21 employees that signed the petition.
Together, they penned the harsh resignation, which read: “We pledged to serve the American people and honor our constitutional oath during all presidential regimes.
But it’s now evident that we are unable to keep those promises.
In addition to denouncing attempts to “dismantle critical public services,” they charged that individuals who have helped Musk and President Trump cut government employees are “political ideologues” who lack the necessary abilities to handle the challenge at hand.
The 21 are from an organization that was first called the United States Digital Service and was founded under Barack Obama’s presidency. They all held prominent positions at digital firms like Google and Amazon before feeling a sense of public duty to join the government.
The day following Trump’s inauguration on January 20, the former staff members were apparently brought in for interviews and forced to speak with a number of unidentified and youthful people who were wearing White House visitor cards.
The employees went on to say that these individuals lacked technical expertise, saying: “A number of these interviewers declined to reveal their identities, inquired about political allegiance, tried to incite rivalry among coworkers, and showed limited technical ability.” This procedure resulted in serious security threats.
This comes after widespread criticism that Musk has hired a large number of inexperienced employees who lack the skills necessary to properly cut $2 trillion in taxes.
This is only a small portion of the 21 resignations. It appears that more than 75,000 federal employees have accepted the offer of “deferred resignation,” while the US Office of Personnel Management estimates that more than 220,000 probationary employees have also been let go.
That doesn’t include the losses at least 17 inspectors general, the Department of Homeland Security, the Energy Department, and other agencies.
It was recently joked that because the DOGE had fired the tech team, an offensive AI movie featuring Musk and Trump could be shown on screens at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Musk termed the article “fake news” and posted X in response to the DOGE resignations. They “would have been fired had they not resigned,” the DOGE chief stated, calling them “Dem political holdovers.”
That’s when the jokes about Musk and Trump being the only ones left in charge of Washington started.