Musk’s DOGE team hit by resignation of 21 technology staffers

More than 20 civil service employees resigned Tuesday from billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), 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 honour 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 and product managers comes amid a flurry of court challenges to the purge of the federal workforce led by Musk and Trump, purges that have sought to stall, stop or unwind efforts to fire or coerce thousands of government workers out of jobs. 

“We will not use our skills as technologists to compromise core government systems, jeopardize Americans’ sensitive data, or dismantle critical public services,” they wrote. 

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday morning. 

Slash-and-burn tactics questioned

The staffers who resigned worked for what was once known as the United States Digital Service. USDS was established over a decade ago to improve 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.  

All of those resigning Tuesday 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.

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 favourite cryptocurrency meme coin, was initially presented as a blue-ribbon commission that would exist outside government. 

Attorneys general from several states led by Democratic officials have filed suit, arguing that DOGE is illegally accessing confidential information. A judge on Monday, in relation to a suit filed by unions representing federal workers, agreed to temporarily bar the Department of Education and the Office of Personnel Management from disclosing records containing sensitive personal information to DOGE representatives. U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman in Greenbelt, Md., ruled that the Privacy Act was likely violated by disclosing people’s personal information to DOGE without their consent.

Despite its name, DOGE is not an official government department, which traditionally have been established by acts of Congress. Trump and Musk have said that “hundreds of millions” of dollars are already being saved, but they have not provided detailed support for those claims.

DOGE published an updated list Monday of nearly 2,300 contracts that agencies terminated in recent weeks across the federal government. Data published on DOGE’s “Wall of Receipts” shows that more than one-third of the contract cancellations, 794 in all, are expected to yield no savings. That’s usually because the total value of the contracts has already been fully obligated, which means the government has a legal requirement to spend the funds for the goods or services it purchased and in many cases has already done so.

“It’s like confiscating used ammunition after it’s been shot when there’s nothing left in it. It doesn’t accomplish any policy objective,” said Charles Tiefer, a retired University of Baltimore law professor and expert on government contracting law. “Their terminating so many contracts pointlessly obviously doesn’t accomplish anything for saving money.”

Federal workers experienced more confusion when Musk demanded they explain their recent accomplishments by the end of Monday or risk termination. Even as that happened, the Office of Personnel Management informed agency leaders that their workers were not required to respond by the deadline of 11:59 p.m. ET Monday.

“‘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.

‘Significant security risks’

The day after Trump’s inauguration, the 21 staffers wrote, they were called into a series of interviews that foreshadowed the secretive and disruptive work of DOGE. According to the staffers, people wearing White House visitor badges, some of whom would not give their names, grilled the nonpartisan employees about their qualifications and politics. 

“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. 

Of the 40 people let go earlier this month, only one was an engineer — an outspoken and politically active staffer named 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.