Twenty-one federal staffers resign in protest against DOGE and Elon Musk

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), inspired by the billionaire Elon Musk, was built on what was formerly the United States Digital Service (USDS). By executive order of Donald Trump, the agency was renamed, though it is still not strictly a department, and inherited its staff. On Tuesday, more than 20 federal employees who had been assigned to DOGE collectively resigned, saying that they refuse 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. However, it has become clear that we can no longer honor those commitments,” the 21 DOGE employees wrote in a resignation letter to White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. “We will not use our skills as technologists to compromise core government systems, jeopardize Americans’ sensitive data, or dismantle critical public services. We will not lend our expertise to carry out or legitimize DOGE’s actions,” they wrote in the letter, the content of which was released by AP.

Those who have resigned — who make up nearly a third of DOGE — include members of the administration’s former digital vanguard, engineers, data scientists and product managers. All had previously held senior positions at tech companies like Google and Amazon, and wrote in their resignation letters that they had joined the government out of a sense of duty to public service, AP reports. With Trump’s return to the White House, those cadres have been displaced by Musk and his young engineers, who have come in with an arrogant style and threatening layoffs left and right.

Climate of confusion

The resignation letter comes a day after the administration itself distanced itself from a threat by Elon Musk in which he asked federal employees to respond in writing to an email to explain what they had accomplished in their jobs the previous week. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) had to clarify that the response to that email was voluntary, after Musk said that he would interpret the lack of response as a resignation and Trump said that those who did not comply would be “fired or semi-fired.”

Several departments had asked their employees to ignore the ultimatum, arguing Musk has no legal authority of any kind for his conduct. Despite this, Musk insisted on Monday, saying that he would give the employees another chance and that this time anyone who did not respond would be fired. In reality, there has not been any new email with a similar request and it is not clear whether there will be one.

The confusion and chaos continues. Hours after OPM said it was voluntary to respond to Musk’s request, it sent out new guidance Monday saying agencies should review responses and evaluate non-responses, considering factors such as whether the employee was absent on leave on Monday or had access to email on that date. The new memo, cited by CNN, said federal employees should direct their responses to agency leadership and copy OPM, contradicting the original request.

The resignations of DOGE members come amid a rarefied climate of harassment and threats. The staffers warn in their letter that many of the people hired by Musk for the drastic reform of the Administration that Donald Trump has entrusted him with are political ideologues who do not have the necessary skills or experience for the task ahead.

According to them, people wearing White House visitors’ 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 employees of the office were fired, though only one of them was a computer engineer. “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.”

USDS was created more than a decade ago to improve services for veterans, and helped create a free government-run portal so tax filers did not have to go through third parties like TurboTax. It also devised systems to improve the way the federal government purchased technology.

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