More than 20 civil service employees on Tuesday resigned from Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) led by US President Donald Trump's billionaire advisor Elon Musk. The employees claimed 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 employees 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 staff also warned that many of those enlisted by Musk to help him slash the size of the federal government under Trump’s administration were political ideologues who did not have the necessary skills or experience to carry out the task ahead of them.
Reacting to the development, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said, “Anyone who thinks protests, lawsuits, and lawfare will deter President Trump must have been sleeping under a rock for the past several years. 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.”
The mass resignation comes amid a flurry of court challenges that have sought to stall, stop or unwind DOGE's efforts to fire or coerce thousands of government workers out of jobs. It also comes a week after Musk declared that all US federal employees may lose their jobs if they fail to submit a detailed accounting of their work week.
"Consistent with the President's instructions, all federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week. Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation," Musk said in a post on X.
Thousands of government employees have already been forced out of the federal workforce - either by being fired or offered a buyout - during the first month of Trump's administration as the White House and DOGE fire both new and career workers, tell agency leaders to plan for "large-scale reductions in force" and freeze trillions of dollars in federal grant funds.
(With inputs from AP)
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