About one-third of staff at Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have resigned in protest, claiming they cannot implement changes that jeopardize the country. In a letter to White House chief of staff Susan Wiles, 21 staffers expressed their commitment to serving the American people but felt unable to honor those commitments under current leadership. The mass resignation followed a chaotic transition after DOGE’s formation from the U.S. Digital Service, leading to the termination of critical staff involved in modernizing essential government services. Musk has dismissed the resignations as political holdovers resistant to his directives.
Washington:
Approximately one-third of the employees at Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency have resigned in protest, stating that they refuse to implement changes that could endanger the nation.
“We pledged to serve the American public and uphold our oath to the Constitution across different presidential administrations,” 21 staff members of DOGE stated in a letter addressed to White House chief of staff Susan Wiles, which was reviewed by AFP on Tuesday.
“However, it has become evident that we can no longer fulfill those commitments,” they concluded.
The employees originally belonged to the United States Digital Service, which was rebranded as DOGE following President Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20th, with Musk effectively taking charge of the department.
Musk serves as the driving political force behind DOGE, with a select group of loyal employees sent across the government to work on reducing federal staffing and budget expenditures.
While not officially the administrator of DOGE, the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla is nonetheless overseeing operations and is expected to attend Trump’s first cabinet meeting on Wednesday.
As the world’s richest individual and a prominent donor to Trump, Musk lacks a formal ministerial position or direct decision-making power but holds a title as a “special government employee” and “senior adviser to the president.”
He downplayed the impact of the resignations, claiming that the staffers were “political holdovers” who worked remotely and disobeyed Trump’s orders to return to the office.
“They would have been fired had they not resigned,” he remarked on X, the platform he owns.
The signatories described a disorganized transition process that began on January 21, featuring hasty interviews conducted by unidentified individuals wearing White House visitor badges.
The interviewers probed staff about their political allegiance, tried to sow discord among team members, and exhibited “limited technical expertise.”
Tensions heightened on February 14 when around one-third of USDS staff were suddenly dismissed via anonymous email.
The terminated employees were involved in modernizing essential government systems, including Social Security, veterans’ services, tax filing, healthcare, and disaster relief platforms, according to the letter.
“Their dismissal jeopardizes millions of Americans who depend on these services daily. The abrupt loss of their technological know-how compromises critical systems and the safety of Americans’ data,” the letter asserted.
The employees explicitly refused to engage in what they characterized as attempts to “compromise foundational government systems, endanger sensitive American information, or dismantle essential public services.”
– Software for firing –
The USDS was formed in 2014 during Barack Obama’s presidency and has traditionally functioned as a non-partisan technology unit aimed at enhancing digital services within the government.
The collective resignation occurred shortly after Musk orchestrated a mass email to the federal government’s two million employees, demanding they justify their roles via email or face termination.
On Monday, government agencies largely advised employees to either disregard the DOGE-inspired email or minimized the risks of not responding to it.
According to Wired magazine, engineers at DOGE are currently developing new software designed to facilitate mass firings of federal workers throughout the government.
To date, thousands of primarily probationary employees—those who have been recently hired, promoted, or assigned new roles—have been terminated since Trump took office.
This new software aims to streamline the dismissal process, known as a reduction in force, to ease the termination of federal employees who possess stronger civil service protections.
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