Federal technology staffers resign rather than help Musk and DOGE
 [February 26, 2025]
By BRIAN SLODYSKO and BYRON TAU
WASHINGTON (AP) — More than 20 civil service employees resigned Tuesday
from billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk's Department of Government
Efficiency, saying they were refusing to use their technical expertise
to “dismantle critical public services.”
“We swore to serve the American people and uphold our oath to the
Constitution across presidential administrations,” the 21 staffers wrote
in a joint resignation letter, a copy of which was obtained by The
Associated Press. “However, it has become clear that we can no longer
honor those commitments.”
The employees also warned that many of those enlisted by Musk to help
him slash the size of the federal government under President Donald
Trump's administration were political ideologues who did not have the
necessary skills or experience for the task ahead of them.
The mass resignation of engineers, data scientists, designers and
product managers is a temporary setback for Musk and the Republican
president's tech-driven purge of the federal workforce. It comes amid a
flurry of court challenges that have sought to stall, stop or unwind
their efforts to fire or coerce thousands of government workers out of
jobs.
In a statement, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was
dismissive of the mass resignation.
“Anyone who thinks protests, lawsuits, and lawfare will deter President
Trump must have been sleeping under a rock for the past several years,"
Leavitt said. "President Trump will not be deterred from delivering on
the promises he made to make our federal government more efficient and
more accountable to the hardworking American taxpayers.”
Musk posted on his social media site X that the story was “fake news”
and suggested that the staffers were “Dem political holdovers" who
“would have been fired had they not resigned.”
The staffers who resigned had worked for the United States Digital
Service, but said their duties were being integrated into DOGE. Their
former office, the USDS, was established under President Barack Obama
after the botched rollout of Healthcare.gov, the web portal that
millions of Americans use to sign up for insurance plans through the
Democrat's signature health care law.
All previously held senior roles at such tech companies as Google and
Amazon and wrote in their resignation letter that they joined the
government out of a sense of duty to public service.
Trump's empowerment of Musk upended that. The day after Trump's
inauguration, the staffers wrote, they were called into a series of
interviews that foreshadowed the secretive and disruptive work of
Musk's' Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
According to the staffers, people wearing White House visitors' badges,
some of whom would not give their names, grilled the nonpartisan
employees about their qualifications and politics. Some made statements
that indicated they had a limited technical understanding. Many were
young and seemed guided by ideology and fandom of Musk — not improving
government technology.
“Several of these interviewers refused to identify themselves, asked
questions about political loyalty, attempted to pit colleagues against
each other, and demonstrated limited technical ability,” the staffers
wrote in their letter. “This process created significant security
risks.”
Earlier this month, about 40 staffers in the office were laid off. The
firings dealt a devastating blow to the government's ability to
administer and safeguard its own technological footprint, they wrote.
“These highly skilled civil servants were working to modernize Social
Security, veterans’ services, tax filing, health care, disaster relief,
student aid, and other critical services,” the resignation letter
states. “Their removal endangers millions of Americans who rely on these
services every day. The sudden loss of their technology expertise makes
critical systems and American’s data less safe.”
Roughly one-third of the 65 staffers who remained at USDS quit on
Tuesday rather than take on new duties under DOGE.
"We will not use our skills as technologists to compromise core
government systems, jeopardize Americans’ sensitive data, or dismantle
critical public services," they wrote. “We will not lend our expertise
to carry out or legitimize DOGE’s actions.”
[to top of second column]
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Elon Musk, left, receives a chainsaw from Argentina's President
Javier Milei, right, as they arrive speaks at the Conservative
Political Action Conference, CPAC, at the Gaylord National Resort &
Convention Center, Thursday, Feb. 20, 2025, in Oxon Hill, Md. (AP
Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
The slash-and-burn effort Musk is leading diverges from what was
initially outlined by Trump during the 2024 presidential campaign.
DOGE, a nod to Musk's favorite cryptocurrency meme coin, was
initially presented as a blue-ribbon commission that would exist
outside government.
After the election, however, Musk hinted there was more to come,
posting to his social media site, X, “Threat to democracy? Nope,
threat to BUREAUCRACY!!!” He has leaned aggressively into the role
since.
Last week he stood on stage at the Conservative Political Action
Conference gathering outside Washington, where he boasted of his
exploits and hoisted a blinged-out, Chinese-made chainsaw above his
head that was gifted by Argentinian President Javier Milei.
"This is the chainsaw for bureaucracy,” Musk bellowed from the
stage.
Still, Musk has tried to keep technical talent in place, with the
bulk of the layoffs in the Digital Service office focused on people
in roles like designers, product managers, human resources and
contracting staff, according to interviews with current and former
staff.
Of the 40 people let go earlier this month, only one was an engineer
— an outspoken and politically active staffer name Jonathan Kamens,
who said in an interview with the AP that he believes he was fired
for publicly endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris, a Democrat, on
his personal blog and being critical of Musk in chats with
colleagues.
"I believe that Elon Musk is up to no good. And I believe that any
data that he gains access to is going to be used for purposes that
are inappropriate and harmful to Americans," Kamens said.
U.S. Digital Service veterans, who spoke on the condition of
anonymity out of fear of reprisal, recalled experiencing a similar
sort of shock about how government processes worked that Musk and
his team are discovering. Over time, many developed an appreciation
for why certain things in government had to be treated with more
care than in the private sector.
“‘Move fast and break things’ may be acceptable to someone who owns
a business and owns the risk. And if things don’t go well, the
damage is compartmentalized. But when you break things in
government, you’re breaking things that belong to people who didn’t
sign up for that,” said Cordell Schachter, who until last month was
the chief information officer at the U.S. Department of
Transportation.
USDS was established over a decade ago to do things like improving
services for veterans, and it helped create a free government-run
portal so tax filers did not have to go through third parties like
TurboTax. It also devised systems to improve the way the federal
government purchased technology.
It has been embroiled in its fair share of bureaucracy fights and
agency turf wars with chief information officers across government
who resented interlopers treading in their agency’s systems. USDS’
power across government stemmed from the imprimatur of acting on
behalf of the White House and its founding mission of improving
service for the American people.
Leavitt, the White House press secretary, is one of three
administration officials who face a lawsuit from The Associated
Press on first- and fifth-amendment grounds. The AP says the three
are punishing the news agency for editorial decisions they oppose.
The White House says the AP is not following an executive order to
refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.
___
Associated Press video journalist Rodrique Ngowi contributed from
Boston.
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