The Story of DOGE, as Told by Federal Workers

Musk said he wanted to downsize the federal workforce. What was the right size, exactly? As lean as possible. Entire agencies were gutted as tens of thousands of federal employees were subjected to reductions in force, or RIFs. Some of these actions have been challenged in court, but the Supreme Court recently ruled that the Trump administration could continue its proposals to potentially lay off federal workers en masse.

“The moment everything crystallized for me was the day they came for a respected career deputy. Someone who embodied integrity and competence. His ‘crime’? Having the guts to challenge DOGE’s reckless RIF plans. One afternoon, he returned from lunch to find security waiting at his desk. No explanation, no warning—just a quiet escort out of the building while stunned colleagues looked on. Years of dedicated service reduced to a public humiliation.” —Department of Labor employee

“I knew what the powers that be were doing wasn’t legal. So either they were incompetent and didn’t know it was illegal, or they knew it was illegal and didn’t care. Which one is scarier?” —CDC employee

“What stands out to me is how disorganized and unprofessional the GSA reduction in force was. Staff were instructed to return government IDs ASAP. We lost Google Drive access immediately, and the agency put resources about our RIF on there. We were blocked from sending emails to non-GSA addresses. Even trying to email career documents to your private email address became a huge issue.” —GSA employee

“When the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was first gutted, one person left their blazer in the office and was unable to get back into the building to get it. It was the only blazer they owned: They were broke, applying for jobs, and had nothing to wear to interviews because of this.” —CFPB employee

On February 14, tens of thousands of federal workers lost their jobs in an event that would become known to those impacted as the Valentine’s Day Massacre. Other workers were told they were going to receive firing letters imminently—only to wait days with no news.

“My fiancée and I had just come back from dinner. We’re getting ready to go to bed. I decide I’m just going to disconnect from social media and my email. I’m just going to turn it off … I saw I had an unread message. I was fired at 11, 11:30 pm. [My fiancée] looks at me, and she sees my demeanor change. [She says,] ‘That was the email, wasn’t it?’” —Fired Federal Aviation Administration aeronautical information specialist

“It was Valentine’s Day, and my partner planned a romantic dinner for us that I ate in a catatonic state, in my sweatpants, covered in tears.” —CDC employee

On February 22, in another echo of his Twitter takeover, Musk warned that the entire federal workforce needed to write an email explaining what they’d gotten done the previous week.

“It was so humiliating to have to prove, ostensibly to Elon Musk—someone not in my chain of command or even a government employee—what I was doing. Not only is it none of their business what I was up to (they are not my supervisor), but they wouldn’t even understand anything I put in there anyway since it’s far too technical. I put read receipts on my first submission, and after I hadn’t gotten pinged that it had been read after two subsequent submissions, I just stopped sending them. It made me so mad that not only are they passive-aggressively insinuating I’m doing nothing, but they’re wasting tons of federal workers’ time (and taxpayer money) doing this exercise, and they aren’t even opening the emails. Infuriating.” —Department of Defense employee

“[Employees were responding with] emails in different languages … responding with the Constitution, and (for someone coming right back from maternity leave) responding with things such as: ‘breastfed a newborn for X number of hours, changed Y number of diapers with Z throughput, managed stakeholder input from my in-laws on best ways to burp a child.’” —VA IT worker

“I actually laughed pretty hard [at Musk’s email]. It’s just so ridiculous … It’s either [that or] be mad 24/7 (which some of my compatriots have decided to do), and I just don’t have the energy anymore.” —FAA air traffic controller