Elon Musk predicts a wave of resignations if federal employees are forced to go to the office

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, the heads of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which for now only exists in the virtual world, plan to slash federal regulations and carry out mass layoffs of civil servants. The richest man in the world and his fellow billionaire have outlined their plans for a drastic government overhaul in an article in The Wall Street Journal. Although they want to cut the number of federal workers aggressively, they are expecting many of them to simply resign if they are forced to go to the office.

Elon Musk fired three out of four employees after buying Twitter, but that led to a series of network failures and a departure of advertisers when the social media company stopped content moderation. The entrepreneur, however, prefers to go overboard rather than fall short. In the article, he holds the view that the civil service protections that apply to federal employees do not apply, if what is being undertaken is a widespread reduction in employment and not layoffs as a form of political retaliation.

In their view, Donald Trump would have broad powers as president to enact measures ranging from large-scale layoffs to relocating federal agencies outside the Washington area. And that’s where they add their plan to end work-from-home policies introduced during the Covid era: “Requiring federal employees to come to the office five days a week would result in a wave of voluntary terminations that we welcome. If federal employees don’t want to show up, American taxpayers shouldn’t pay them for the Covid-era privilege of staying home,” they write.

Elon Musk has been vocal against remote working for years. On Twitter, he demanded that employees report to the office. Two years ago, his position on the matter at Tesla became known: he was happy for employees to log on to continue working remotely from home, but only if they had previously spent the full day in the office. “Anyone who wants to work remotely must be in the office for a minimum of 40 hours a week or leave Tesla. This is less than what we ask of factory workers,” he wrote in a message at the time, stressing that 40 hours was a minimum.

Conflicts of interest

In their article, Musk and Ramaswamy make it clear that they will not be joining the federal government. Therefore, they will not be subject to the conflict of interest and incompatibility regimes for public employees. Musk wants to eliminate regulations that hinder his own companies, such as Tesla, SpaceX, xAI and Neuralink. In a conference call with analysts, he made it clear that he would use his influence with the president to benefit himself, for example by changing the regulations for self-driving cars. The value of his companies has since skyrocketed.

“President Trump has asked the two of us to lead a newly formed Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, to cut the federal government down to size,” they write in their article. “The entrenched and ever-growing bureaucracy represents an existential threat to our republic, and politicians have abetted it for too long. That’s why we’re doing things differently. We are entrepreneurs, not politicians. We will serve as outside volunteers, not federal officials or employees. Unlike government commissions or advisory committees, we won’t just write reports or cut ribbons. We’ll cut costs.”

“We are assisting the Trump transition team to identify and hire a lean team of small-government crusaders, including some of the sharpest technical and legal minds in America. This team will work in the new administration closely with the White House Office of Management and Budget. The two of us will advise DOGE at every step to pursue three major kinds of reform: regulatory rescissions, administrative reductions and cost saving,” they say.

Musk and Ramaswamy aim to use recent case law by the conservative-majority Supreme Court stripping federal agencies of regulatory power in order to roll back regulations. The cases are West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency, from 2022, in which the justices ruled that agencies cannot impose regulations addressing important economic or political issues unless specifically authorized by Congress. The other case is Loper Bright v. Raimondo, from 2024, in which the Supreme Court overturned the Chevron doctrine and held that federal courts should no longer defer to federal agencies’ interpretations of statutes.

“DOGE will work with legal experts embedded in government agencies, aided by advanced technology, to apply these rulings to federal regulations enacted by such agencies. DOGE will present this list of regulations to President Trump, who can, by executive action, immediately pause the enforcement of those regulations and initiate the process for review and rescission. This would liberate individuals and businesses from illicit regulations never passed by Congress and stimulate the U.S. economy,” says the article.

Massive layoffs

The two billionaires hold the theory that a drastic reduction in regulations must result in “mass head-count reductions across the federal bureaucracy.” DOGE wants to reduce staff to the minimum number of employees necessary in an agency to be able to carry out its constitutionally permissible and statutorily mandated functions. The number of federal employees to be cut, they argue, must be at least proportional to the number of federal regulations repealed: not only are fewer employees needed to enforce fewer regulations, but the agency would produce fewer regulations once its scope of authority is limited. The logic fails to take into account that not all regulations require the same number of employees for their implementation.

“Employees whose positions are eliminated deserve to be treated with respect, and DOGE’s goal is to help support their transition into the private sector. The president can use existing laws to give them incentives for early retirement and to make voluntary severance payments to facilitate a graceful exit,” the billionaires say. That is, of course, assuming the federal workers don’t resign first for being made to go to the office, as Musk and Ramaswamy suggest will probably happen.

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