Dozens of Elon Musk’s DOGE employees resign in one day with scathing letter
A further reduction in the number of people employed by the government
Reports indicate that over 20 employees from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency have resigned, further straining the government’s workforce. Musk has also stirred the pot by demanding that government employees return to in-office work, sending a bold email to more than 2.3 million staff members asking, “What did you accomplish last week?” Meanwhile, the Director of the Department of Defense has taken Donald Trump’s call for a “more aggressive” approach to heart, already making sweeping cuts to agencies like USAID.
Elon Musk issued a second ultimatum to federal employees, offering one last chance to respond to his earlier email. This comes after departments like the FBI instructed staff to ignore his message.
According to the Associated Press, over twenty employees from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have made their dissatisfaction known, resigning in dramatic fashion.
A group of twenty-one employees, spanning a variety of roles such as engineers, data scientists, designers, and product managers, joined together to sign a scathing resignation letter. “We swore to serve the American people and uphold our oath to the Constitution across presidential administrations,” the letter read. “However, it has become clear that we can no longer honor those commitments.”
The letter went on to criticize plans to “dismantle critical public services,” and accused those supporting President Trump and Elon Musk in their efforts to reduce the government workforce of being “political ideologues” lacking the necessary expertise to tackle the challenges ahead.
The twenty-one resigning employees all hail from a department once known as the United States Digital Service, which was established during Barack Obama’s administration. Prior to joining the government out of a sense of public duty, each had held prominent positions at major tech companies, including Amazon and Google.
Reports suggest that these former staff members were required to participate in interviews the day after President Trump’s inauguration on January 20. The interviews were conducted by a group of young, unfamiliar individuals who wore visitor badges to the White House event.
According to the employees, several of these interviewers refused to identify themselves, asked questions regarding political loyalty, and attempted to pit colleagues against one another. The staff members also claimed that these interviewers displayed a concerning lack of technical knowledge. This lack of expertise, they argued, contributed to significant security vulnerabilities within the department.
This wave of resignations follows mounting criticism of Elon Musk’s decision to hire a large number of young employees, many of whom are said to lack the necessary expertise to effectively execute his ambitious plan of slashing government spending by $2 trillion. The 21 resignations are just the tip of the iceberg. Reports indicate that over 75,000 federal workers have opted for “deferred resignation,” while the U.S. Office of Personnel Management reveals that more than 220,000 probationary employees have been dismissed from their roles. This growing exodus is raising concerns about the long-term stability and effectiveness of the government workforce.
The situation worsens when you factor in the layoffs across multiple departments, including the Department of Energy, the Department of Homeland Security, and at least seventeen inspectors general. In a recent twist, an AI-generated video deemed inappropriate for work somehow made its way onto screens at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), after the department had let go of its tech staff.
In response to the resignations at DOGE, Musk took to X, dismissing the reports as “fake news.” He described the employees as “Dem political holdovers” and claimed they “would have been fired anyway if they hadn’t resigned.”
With these developments, the jokes are already circulating about Musk and Trump being the last ones standing in Washington. The political landscape is shifting rapidly, and tensions are high.
