On February 25, 21 federal employees working for Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) resigned en masse, writing a joint letter to White House Chief of Staff Susan Wiles. In their letter, they cited concerns over Musk’s leadership, alleging a chaotic work environment, unrealistic policy directives, and a disregard for established government protocols. They claimed that DOGE, originally intended to streamline bureaucratic inefficiencies, had instead become a platform for Musk’s personal ideological experiments. Many of the employees Musk hired into the administration were like-minded political ideologists who lacked the necessary experience for their roles. This collective resignation underscores the internal challenges and ethical dilemmas faced by federal technologists amid significant organizational changes.
The U.S. Digital Service (USDS) was established in 2014 by former President Barack Obama and was renamed DOGE by an executive order signed by President Trump on his inauguration day. Musk now leads the initiative to reduce the size of the government, with DOGE having eliminated key federal tech agencies, outsourced government services to private contractors, and automated tasks such as terminating government employees. The employees who resigned, along with other critics, argue that these changes have compromised the integrity and accessibility of public digital services, while supporters claim they have cut costs and improved efficiency.
In their letter, the former DOGE employees outlined key events that led to their collective decision to resign. On January 21, DOGE employees were required to attend 15-minute Zoom calls with anonymous White House visitors who asked questions about political loyalty and attempted to pit workers against each other, creating security risks. On February 14, one-third of U.S. Digital Service employees were abruptly fired via an anonymous email. These employees had supported major agencies providing essential services to Americans, including “social services, veterans’ services, tax filing, healthcare, disaster relief, student aid, and other critical services.” Their removal put millions at risk, weakening essential services and compromising data security. On February 16, DOGE began integrating USDS employees into its political initiatives, “firing technical experts, mishandling critical data, and breaking critical systems,” wrote the team of engineers, data scientists, project managers, designers, and operations managers, who concluded that these actions directly contradict their mission to enhance public services and uphold the principles of the U.S. Constitution.
The weekend before the mass resignation, the Office of Personnel Management sent an email to all government employees demanding that they submit a bulleted list of all tasks they had completed in recent weeks. Musk warned that any employee who failed to respond to the email would be fired. This came after over 20,000 government employees had already been dismissed in the preceding months. The DOGE employees who resigned stated in their letter that they harbor no ill will toward those who remain in the department and instead offer their full support in maintaining vital government functions.
Musk dismissed the AP News report on the resignation letter, calling it “fake news” in a post on X. In a separate post, DOGE employee Katie Miller wrote, “These were full remote workers who hung Trans flags from their workplaces,” implying that the resigning employees were politically motivated rather than essential to government operations. His response, consistent with his previous rejections of criticism toward DOGE, further widened the divide between his administration and government technologists. Musk claims these actions are intended to lower the national debt, which currently stands at over $3 trillion, but the resigning employees and other supporters see his recent actions as self-serving. While supporters argue that the agency’s restructuring is necessary to curb inefficiency, the mass resignation highlights growing unrest within the federal workforce. Whether the White House will intervene or continue to back Musk’s aggressive overhaul remains uncertain.
