More than 20 civil service employees resigned Tuesday from the DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency). The employees are standing ten toes against the goals of the agency run by President Trump‘s adviser, Elon Musk. Though they worked for the United States Digital Service, the DOGE was allegedly tasking the staffers, too! Despite the public shock, Elon Musk and the White House seemingly said “SEE YA” with no issues!
More Details About DOGE Resignations
In a collective resignation letter, 21 employees said they refused 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, per the Associated Press. “However, it has become clear that we can no longer honor those commitments.”
The employees also warned that many of those Musk enlisted to help him slash the size of the federal government allegedly don’t have the skills or experience to follow through on Trump’s executive orders. For context, there’s been a mass resignation of engineers, data scientists, designers, and product managers in the federal government. In response, there have been several court challenges looking to stall, stop, or unwind the government’s efforts to fire or coerce thousands of government workers out of their jobs.
The White House & Elon Musk Respond To The Resignations
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.”
Employees Say All THIS Happened With The DOGE
The staffers who resigned have their resumes to back them up, though. While working for the United States Digital Service, the employees said the DOGE integrated them with their duties. Their former office, the USDS, was established under President Barack Obama after the botched rollout of Healthcare.gov.
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That was the web portal that millions of Americans use to sign up for insurance plans through the Democrat’s signature health care law.
All the employees who resigned previously held senior roles at tech companies such as Google and Amazon and wrote in their resignation letters that they joined the government out of a sense of duty to public service.
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President Trump changed that. The staffers wrote that the day after Trump’s inauguration, they were called into a series of interviews that foreshadowed the secretive and disruptive work of Musk’s 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 Musk’s ideology and fandom—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 office staffers were laid off. The firings dealt a devastating blow to the government’s ability to administer and safeguard its 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.”
Of the 40 people let go earlier this month, only one was an engineer—an outspoken and politically active staffer named Jonathan Kamens. In an interview with the AP, Kamens said he believes he was fired for publicly endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris 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.
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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.’
Associated Press writers Brian Slodysko, Byron Tau, and video journalist Rodrique Ngowi contributed to this report.
