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Twenty-One DOGE Members Quit
When I first saw this headline, I was extremely concerned. Were the workers that Elon Musk had hired abandoning ship? But then I read more closely and realized that these were not Musk’s hires, but people who were merged into DOGE from the US Digital Service, which was set up during the Obama administration.
And they are really pissed off.
They signed a joint resignation letter with only their titles, not their names, and made in part the following statement:
‘Each of us left senior private sector technology positions to pursue nonpartisan public service. We swore to serve the American people and uphold our oath to the Constitution across presidential administrations,’ the 21 workers said in a joint resignation letter Tuesday. ‘However, it has become clear that we can no longer honor those commitments at the United States DOGE Service.’
How can anyone not be moved by these self-sacrificing federal workers?
They also distorted their reasons for leaving, to make them sound more honorable:
The Tuesday letter said Musk’s team began integrating legacy members of the US Digital Service after the Feb. 14 termination notices were sent out.
DOGE’s actions include ‘firing technical experts, mishandling sensitive data and breaking critical systems,’ according to the letter. ‘We will not use our skills as technologists to compromise core government systems.’
We can make reasonable assumptions that they were angry when Musk started firing people, especially “technical experts.” How did DOGE mishandle sensitive data or break critical systems? I guess we’ll never know.
The real issue seems to be that life, for these employees, is no longer predictable, and they are terrified. As often happens in private sector organizations, DOGE reorganized USDS, and the employees didn’t approve of their decisions. But Musk shined a light on X about what might also be a factor:
‘These were Dem political holdovers who refused to return to the office,’ Musk wrote. ‘They would have been fired had they not resigned.’
As additional evidence of their protest, they have created a website. They clearly wanted to make a statement:
For decades, we’ve done our jobs in the background. We made it easier to file taxes, get veterans’ benefits, and apply for financial aid. During times of crisis, we helped refugees navigate immigration processes, helped everyone find vaccines, and helped parents find baby formula.
Along the way, we made government websites easier to use while protecting the integrity of your personal information.
If they really wanted to know how to use technology to build a more efficient country, they would ask us.
But they haven’t. They are destroyers.
We are the builders.
Our legislators have to at least make an effort to appeal to Musk and Trump about minimizing the chaos in their upcoming actions and empathize with the reactions of federal employees.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, of South Dakota, told NBC News on Tuesday that any reductions in the federal workforce “need to be done in a respectful way.”
‘We want to do everything we can — and I think this has been long overdue — to try and figure out how we can make government work more efficiently, cost the taxpayers less, and make sure that they get a good return on the tax dollars that they spend in this country,’ Thune said. ‘But I would also argue again that in anything that they do, they need to be respectful of people that are involved in these agencies and departments of government.’
Rep. Rich McCormick, R-Ga., said Tuesday that Republicans need to adjust their messaging around DOGE. McCormick’s comments came after people in his district lashed out at him last week over the mass terminations of federal workers.
‘I’m all for trimming the government, but I am all for also doing it in a deliberate manner that allows people to adjust in their lifestyle,’ McCormick told reporters on Capitol Hill when asked about the confrontation at his town hall.
Two observations on this situation: (1) Musk is focused on using a wrecking ball, and an appeal to be more orderly will probably fall on deaf ears; and (2) the protestors at Rep. McCormick’s townhall may have been hired by Soros and his ilk to cause their own kind of chaos.
At this point, everyone should probably step back and take a deep breath.
It’s going to continue to be a bumpy ride.
Published in Domestic Policy
Disgraceful headline. Disgraceful nonsense from these Republicans.
Anyone who spends (or spent) part of their career in large companies will recognize Musk’s role: the outsider hatchet man, who will do the necessary dirty deeds and then depart. Look past the rockets and EVs and techie stuff: he has a long history of lopping off management layers or whole teams or 80% of companies when they don’t produce.
The USDS drones had the misfortune of being reorg’ed onto Musk’s ‘special projects’ team.
Maybe it seemed like decades, but this group was established in 2014. Pro tip: If you want to be taken seriously, get your basic facts straight. Oh, and have the integrity to identify yourselves.
What do you mean, “Musk’s hires”? According to administration court filings he’s a mere consultant and advisor, not a DOGE decision-maker, least of all one charged with hiring staff. Might it be possible that Trump is lying about Musk’s role? Unimaginable.
If these fearless 21 IT specialists are no better than many I knew in industry, I’d be more concerned about the state of what they left behind them. Few are the brilliant PhD types who decode ancient scrolls. Most staff IT people are maintenance level and who of you has found any Federal web based activity smooth sailing and showing signs of good maintenance? If they are such hot dogs why do none of the Fed systems work well?
And who paid for their fancy website? There is no donate button but a Media inquiries link.
Cry harder. The average American has been through this process a few times. There’s a reason why Mel Brooks made a joke about Civil Service in Blazing Saddles. All I have to say to Elon is “Go man, go!”
2014-2025 is eleven calendar years and part of a twelfth. That’s more than one decade. The claim is valid. Tenuous, but valid.
It’s hard to imagine a website less fancy than theirs. It contains a home page and links to seven blog entries, eight pages at the moment, some of which contain mailto links or links to social media accounts. It’s completely static and if you had the content prewritten might take an hour to put together using a free website builder from a hosting company.
Awww….
I remember a few years ago when I was helping maintain IT systems in a health care organization. It directly impacted the ability of Doctors and other providers to care for their patients. In many ways it was the best job I’ve ever had.
And then I was forced to leave it for declining an experimental vaccine that didn’t work. And all the sympathetic government workers said…..
nothing.
Shouldn’t a website built to proclaim their “builder” creds be just a tad more impressive than something a high school student with access to an AI could pop out in five minutes?
I think it was more intentioned to serve as a “bitching session” rather than to convince anyone of its veracity. They mainly did it for themselves.
Oh please.
For decades, we’ve done our jobs in the background.
Maybe it seemed like decades, but this group was established in 2014. Pro tip: If you want to be taken seriously, get your basic facts straight. Oh, and have the integrity to identify yourselves.
Two months into 2025 isn’t a decade. They knew saying 11 years would draw no sympathy. For all we know, they are the new hires on probation. They want things to return to before where they can sit at home and kinda work. Screw them.
Screw the whiny Republicans who don’t have the stomach for shrinking government. They are part of the problem.
I’m tired of these baseless attacks on DOGE.
Hoyacon, I don’t know why your name disappeared on your part of the quote above. Chalk it up to a grandma using technology.
Shaking my head here: why did they sign up for this project in the first place?
I do not understand my fellow humans. :)
The quitters are the government workers in the office DOGE went into.
These former employees are vestiges from previous administrations and not the new Trump administration.
I chanced upon a Fox News clip on YouTube yesterday, which I cannot find today to link to, in which the reporter said that the Trump administration is being equally industrious in cutting federal regulations.
I was pleased to see that. It is key to the reduction in executive branch spending.
The number one problem with the DOGE cuts will arise when Americans try to call a particular agency to get an answer to an important question. When no one in the agency picks up the phone or no one knowledgeable picks up the phone (which is how it has always gone with the IRS, even before DOGE) to answer the question, Americans will get very frustrated.
Of course, that frustration is what the government unions are counting on to create the public pressure to rehire all of the people DOGE is letting go.
The only way to forestall that reaction from the country–both Democrats and Republicans will become very frustrated–is to decrease the need for that kind of government-public interaction.
Trump and Musk have to be as ruthless in cutting regulations as they are in cutting employees. And I’m sure they will be.
Okay. Now it makes sense. Thank you. :)
It’s amusing the lengths people go to to impute sin to their political opponents. On the same page that contains innuendo about who paid for the “fancy” website, we find criticism that the same website lacks sophistication. Of course, both commenters are ignorant of the backgrounds and technological expertise of the ex-government employees who created the site, so their criticisms are based purely on conjecture and speculation and are worth what you paid for them—in my case, nothing.
I didn’t say anything about who paid for it. If they did hire anyone, they’re even worse at building than their cri du coeur implies.
Life is tough. Rub some dirt on it. Walk it off.
Scroll up the page and you’ll encounter someone who did.
Couldn’t they have just obeyed the directive and returned to work like everybody else? If they’re so selfless and public service oriented, going to work for your money doesn’t seem like an unreasonable ask.
And if they know they are so useful, and have skills that might be of help to the new management, they might be just what Elon is hoping he will find here and there, so he doesn’t have to entirely wipe the slate clean—experienced government workers who genuinely have the nation’s welfare and survival as their primary concern.
Or maybe they’re just whiney entitled grifters who have been sucking lavishly on the teat of the enormous bloated dying sow that the federal bureaucracy has become, and they really have nothing useful to offer the future. Maybe. 🤔
Surely there is a Constitutional guarantee that extra monies be spent on terminated government employees that they may adjust in their lifestyles.
Nope, just checked and it’s not there.
Good news though, they can go on unemployment. Like little people.
And I thought it was just the Memes today that were especially funny….😂😂😂
And I’m responsible for that? Why, exactly?
I wouldn’t attribute the drivel your fellow travelers declaim to you. Your drivel will suffice.
Oh dear. I didn’t claim you were responsible, you have misread my comment. Read it again and this time, have a stab at guessing what “both commenters” means. Then return here and apologize.
Didn’t Trump offer federal employees an 8-month severance package if they left volunarily? Perhaps some of these folks should have opted for that.