• Donald Trump's new DOGE commission, tasked with cutting spending, has floated laying off federal workers.
• Government employees said they were preparing by networking and freshening their résumés.
• Amid the concerns with DOGE, some employees said there could be benefits to its aims.

Federal employees are reporting mixed feelings about President-elect Donald Trump's new Department of Government Efficiency and its ideas to cut costs by laying off workers and enforcing return-to-office mandates.

Some are worried, some are optimistic, and most are considering their other career options, 10 people who spoke with Business Insider said. Most asked for anonymity for fear of professional repercussions.

"We're just workers. We work in a nonpartisan way," one Department of Health and Human Services employee said, adding that they were nervous, especially because they recently bought a home. "It kind of feels like we're being villainized."

On the other hand, Jesus Soriano, who's been a program director at the National Science Foundation for 13 years and is president of the agency's American Federation of Government Employees union, said that while employees were scared, there were "reasons for optimism with DOGE."

Trump said his picks to lead the unofficial commission, Tesla CEO Elon Musk and the former GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, "are technologists."

"They have — both of them in their own fields — translated science into products that have tremendous impact on the public and that contribute to America being a preeminent powerhouse," he said.

Musk is the CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, and other various companies, and Ramaswamy started a tech-focused pharmaceutical company called Roivant Sciences.

In the wake of the DOGE Commission, many government workers said they were updating their résumés, networking more, or assessing new career options — regardless of their political beliefs.

"Everyone is putting their ducks in a row," a Department of Housing and Urban Development administrative worker of 10 years who worked under Trump's first term told BI. "You can't be lackadaisical, regardless that the government may take forever to do something. You better be one step ahead at all times."

While it's still unclear how exactly DOGE would cut government spending, Musk and Ramaswamy have pledged to eliminate some government agencies, which could mean laying off thousands of federal workers, and compel others who have been working from home to return to the office.

The federal government is the largest employer in the US, paying more than 2 million civilian workers. The Departments of Veterans Affairs, Homeland Security, and Defense are among the top employers, with workers earning average salaries near $100,000. Just under half of all workers across 24 agencies were telework-eligible as of May 2024, according to an Office of Management and Budget report.

"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," Musk and Ramaswamy wrote about their cost-cutting plans in a recent op-ed in The Wall Street Journal.

Brian Hughes, a Trump-Vance transition spokesperson, told BI the administration "will have a place for people serving in government who are committed to defending the rights of the American people, putting America first, and ensuring the best use of working men and women's tax dollars." He didn't offer any details on cuts.

Soriano, the National Science Foundation program director, said government workers were "still scared." He said five colleagues he'd talked to were actively seeking new jobs or opting to retire.

Increased efficiency is a welcomed idea. In-office mandates, not so much.

Trimming government spending and improving efficiency is an idea often discussed on both sides of the political spectrum.

President Ronald Reagan pursued a similar goal with the Grace Commission, a team of 160 private-sector executives who proposed more than 2,000 cost-cutting measures. President Bill Clinton also attempted to reduce federal spending and improve government efficiency with the National Performance Review, led by federal employees.

The efforts had mixed results. Many proposals from the Grace Commission that relied on congressional acts didn't end up happening, while executive orders were successful in reducing the head count of federal workers. Clinton's panel similarly succeeded in cutting 300,000 federal workers but managed to get only a quarter of proposals that required legislative action through Congress.

An operations manager at the US Postal Service who has worked in the department for 27 years told BI every company had inefficiencies, and "that's what we all strive to decrease."

He has concerns, however, about people stepping in to make suggestions for the Postal Service without having "tribal knowledge" of the department.

"If you're just going to be appointed to this type of commission or committee with no knowledge of what exactly the Postal Service does, then that could potentially be a problem," he said.

DOGE's intent to eliminate remote work is also a concern for some workers. The HUD employee, who'd been working remotely, said return-to-office enforcement would "absolutely" be enough to cause them to resign. They're preparing for layoffs under DOGE by looking at other employment opportunities, and they said their colleagues at HUD were taking similar steps.

Joyce Howell, an attorney at the Environmental Protection Agency — who's been at the agency for more than 31 years and serves as executive vice president of its AFGE union — said the incoming administration had stoked concern about layoffs at the EPA and fears that its mission could be compromised.

"We have town halls once a month, and we've actually broken our Zoom account in terms of the number of people attending," she said of union meetings.

Musk and Ramaswamy wrote in the Journal op-ed that the commission would target more than $500 billion in what they called unauthorized government spending. They said federal employees who were laid off would be offered early retirement. At a town hall in October, Musk said he would consider giving laid-off workers up to two years' severance.

An employee at the Food and Drug Administration said it wasn't that easy: "We're here to support a mission. We have families to feed, and it's not as easy as just quitting our jobs," the FDA employee said.

"We're just normal, everyday people — we're being portrayed as inefficient, lazy people," they added. "It feels like they're coming for us just for their own agenda, not realizing that we're the backbone of the federal government."

Another federal-government lifer said many workers like them — people who'd been there for years — were nervous they might be the first to go. The career tenure of a median federal government worker was 6.5 years in 2024, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data, well above the median 3.5 years private workers have spent in their roles.

One senior official at the Commerce Department said they anticipated a civil-servant brain drain. "The scientists are the most concerned," the official said, with those in climate, meteorology, and environmental science particularly worried.

The Department of Education has meanwhile been singled out as an entire agency that could be on the chopping block.

Sheria Smith, the president of the AFGE union at the Department of Education and a civil rights attorney at the agency, said department elimination was "on the lower end of concerns" because it would take time and need to go through Congress.

Rather, being turned into a "Schedule F" workforce, which allows government agencies to reclassify workers and remove certain protections that make them easier to fire, could mean employees who aren't "aligned with the executive wholly" could be laid off based on performance.

And given the widespread denigration of the Education Department and return-to-office threats, people are most likely looking for other work. "I'd be surprised if they weren't," Smith said.

Are you a federal worker willing to share your story? Contact these reporters at [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], and [email protected].

• Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy outlined their vision for sweeping federal budget cuts in an opinion piece.
• DOGE will rely on executive orders and court rulings, instead of Congress, they said.
• They said they'd be "taking aim at" funding for public media and Planned Parenthood.

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have outlined their vision for the Department of Government Efficiency in a lengthy op-ed, spelling out how the duo plan to slash government spending.

On Wednesday, Musk and Ramaswamy outlined their vision for DOGE, which Musk previously said would cut $2 trillion from the federal budget.

Their opinion piece, published in the Wall Street Journal, is lengthy and dense, filled with Supreme Court rulings and decades-old statutes. Here are the main takeaways.

DOGE will be staffed by 'small-government crusaders' and work with the Office of Management and Budget.

Since its inception, DOGE has existed as an agency outside of government rather than a department — this way, Musk and Ramaswamy aren't government employees and don't have to divest from their businesses.

The DOGE co-heads re-hash this point in their column, writing that they will "serve as outside volunteers, not federal officials or employees." They are working with Trump's transition team to organize "a lean team of small-government crusaders, including some of the sharpest technical and legal minds in America." DOGE employees will work closely with the Office of Management and Budget, which prepares the president's budget requests for Congress.

Musk and Ramaswamy will be DOGE's main advisors and oversee three categories of reform: "regulatory rescissions, administrative reductions and cost savings."

DOGE will turn to recent Supreme Court rulings as a guide.

Musk and Ramaswamy wrote that their goal for deep reform will be rooted in two Supreme Court rulings.

The pair cited West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency, a 2022 Supreme Court ruling in which the court restricted the agency's ability to regulate carbon emissions, and Loper Bright v. Raimondo, a 2024 ruling where the court overturned Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council (1984). The Chevron decision dictated that federal courts should defer to federal agencies in their interpretation of statutes; in overturning it, the Supreme Court stripped agencies of significant power.

Musk and Ramaswamy said in the opinion piece that the rulings from the court point to regulations that "exceed the authority Congress has granted under the law."

The pair said that rolling back a range of "illicit" regulations would create economic prosperity in the country. And they wrote that the move would be a major step in remedying what they deem to be "executive overreach."

DOGE will rely heavily on executive action to pursue its cost-cutting agenda.

Musk and Ramaswamy make clear that they won't aim to pass new laws in their roles, meaning they won't have to rely on Congress.

According to their opinion piece, DOGE will work with legal experts working at government agencies to use their interpretation of the rulings to identify which regulations to cut. After determining which regulations are wasteful, DOGE will make their recommendations to Trump, who could then take executive action to "pause" certain rules and begin the process to review and reverse them.

DOGE also plans to go after the federal government's procurement process, which agencies use to get goods and services. Musk and Ramaswamy write that many federal contracts haven't been properly investigated and that broad audits of agencies "during a temporary suspension of payments would yield significant savings."

Musk and Ramaswamy explain how they'll reduce the size of the federal workforce.

Musk and Ramaswamy make it clear that by eliminating federal regulations, there should also be "mass head-count reductions across the federal bureaucracy."

The pair stated that DOGE will work with agencies to identify the minimum number of staffers needed for departments to function and still maintain their effectiveness.

"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," they wrote. "The president can use existing laws to give them incentives for early retirement and to make voluntary severance payments to facilitate a graceful exit."

And Musk and Ramaswamy poured cold water on pandemic-era work-from-home policies as they aim to reform the government's finances.

"Requiring federal employees to come to the office five days a week would result in a wave of voluntary terminations that we welcome," the pair wrote.

Musk and Ramaswamy plan to target public media and Planned Parenthood.

To fulfill its promise of saving taxpayer money through executive action, DOGE plans to "take aim at the $500 billion plus in annual federal expenditures that are unauthorized by Congress or being used in ways that Congress never intended." Though Musk and Ramaswamy don't detail all of the programs they hope to target, the two mention the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Planned Parenthood, along with other "progressive groups."

Congress created the CPB in 1967. It is the single biggest funding source for public radio, television, and online services, largely for local public media stations. Public Broadcasting Service and National Public Radio each receive some of their funding from the CPB.

Musk and Ramaswamy address critiques about spending goals and executive overreach.

Since DOGE was announced, critics have questioned whether Musk's previously stated goal of cutting $2 trillion from the federal budget is feasible, particularly given their limited power without Congress. In 2024, federal spending reached $6.75 trillion, with a combined 45% of it going to health insurance programs, like Medicare, and Social Security.

Musk has a history of overcoming steep odds in the private sector. Both Tesla and SpaceX have survived near-financial ruin to become wildly successful, partly because Musk has bet on industries others deem too risky to touch.

The co-heads face the critiques head on, writing that any claims of executive overreach are unfounded. Instead, they say they will "be correcting the executive overreach of thousands of regulations promulgated by administrative fiat" by applying their Supreme Court interpretations. According to their stated logic, a future president would need to pass a law to reinstate any regulations that Trump scraps.

Critics have also pointed to the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 as a potential roadblock for the agency; the statute requires the president to spend funds that Congress has appropriated. Musk and Ramaswamy note that Trump has implied that the statute is unconstitutional and predict that the Supreme Court would agree. Regardless of the statute's future, DOGE plans to move forward with its mission.

Musk and Ramaswamy argue that questions about entitlement programs like Medicare "deflects attention from the sheer magnitude of waste, fraud and abuse," but don't specifically address that critique otherwise.

DOGE will end by July 4, 2026.

Musk and Ramaswamy wrote that they expect to "prevail" in their fight to enact sweeping governmental reforms.

And they emphasized that it's their objective for DOGE to be phased out by July 4, 2026.

"There is no better birthday gift to our nation on its 250th anniversary than to deliver a federal government that would make our Founders proud," the DOGE co-heads wrote.

Representatives for Musk and Trump did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment; a representative for Ramaswamy declined the request.