Elon Musk's Department of Government Inefficiency
Elon Musk showed up in Washington in January on a promise to streamline the federal government and make it run more efficiently. But over the course of just five weeks, he's accomplished precisely the opposite: a massive and unnecessary time suck that's pulled federal employees away from their duties on a daily basis.
Firing essential workers who need to then be rehired. Distracting agencies with directives that are reversed and then reversed again. Forcing workers back into offices where they don't have enough desks. And provoking countless agency meetings where managers are unable to answer basic questions about the White House's latest move. On and on it goes.
'The meetings are as clear as mud,' said Sheria Smith, a civil rights attorney at the Department of Education in Texas and president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 252. 'No one knows anything. … People are being released from duty, then returned to duty. We don't know who's calling the shots. It's just wildly inefficient.'
She added, 'How can you be on task when you don't even know from hour to hour whether you're going to [have a job]?'
President Donald Trump vowed on the campaign trail to fire a lot of people and shrink the federal workforce, which numbers around 2.4 million, excluding the U.S. Postal Service. So far the administration has terminated thousands of people through legally dubious layoffs and tried to push out tens of thousands more through the also legally dubious deferred resignation program known as 'Fork in the Road.'
In more than a dozen interviews, federal workers described lost hours and days as they tried to navigate an endless stream of unclear guidance as their jobs hang in the balance. Most of them spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of being fired or retaliated against.
A mental health provider at the Department of Veterans Affairs said in the wake of the 'Fork' proposal they'd had four impromptu staff meetings, each up to a half-hour long, 'pulling us away from veteran care.'
'In response to Saturday's 'what did you do last week?' email, leadership scheduled yet another meeting first thing Monday morning — forcing me to reschedule a veteran's appointment just to receive guidance from my leadership on how to respond,' they said.
Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, should instead be called a department of 'inefficiency or ineptitude,' said Max Stier, president of the Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit organization that advocates for a more effective federal government.
'They have caused unbelievable waste, unbelievable distraction from the mission, unbelievable loss of critical talent,' Stier said. 'They've done nothing to understand the systems they're trying to change or learn from those around them who know better.'
He added, 'The federal government isn't, in fact, a tech startup.'
Much of the wasted time stems from the White House's hostile and confusing directives.
Some of the most critical information isn't coming from federal agency leaders — it's coming from the previously obscure Office of Personnel Management, and from Musk, the unelected head of a not-real federal agency. (Trump has formally renamed the U.S. Digital Service the U.S. DOGE Service, but DOGE is better understood as a White House government-cutting initiative.)
Late last week, more than 2 million workers received an email from OPM instructing them to reply with a list of five bullet points explaining what they'd accomplished during the previous week. The insulting demand was paired with a threat from Musk on X, his private social-media platform formerly known as Twitter, where he said a failure to reply would be considered 'a resignation.'
Workers, union representatives and agency managers spent the weekend trying to figure out whether people actually needed to respond. Many employees got little done on Monday as unscheduled meetings were called and agency heads gave conflicting guidance on what to do.
OPM later said replying to Musk's demand was voluntary, suggesting there would be no repercussions for ignoring it. But Trump contradicted that guidance by saying those who didn't reply would be 'fired' or 'sort of semi-fired.'
Such chaos ends up having a real-world impact, said an employee of the Veterans Benefits Administration who processes disability claims. The worker receives a daily report on her productivity rate, which is based on the number of claims processed and their complexity, and she saw a roughly 20% drop on Monday as she and others were dealing with the Musk ultimatum.
In other words, veterans with disabilities stemming from their service to the country were waiting longer to have their claims processed because of confusing threats from the White House.
'People are stressed out, and that's going to get in the way,' she explained. 'We have to focus. These claims are very complex. It requires a lot of attention. We're definitely being taken away from the focus we should be putting on the veterans.'
Another VA worker said their superiors had been 'mired in daily meetings to discuss what little information we had, how it was affecting employees and overall morale, and addressing whether or not any of this is legal.'
'To estimate time loss over the course of one week, I'd say it cost us at least a full day's productivity, if not more,' they said.
Nothing may be more wasteful than firing workers who must then be rehired. After the Trump administration's sloppy firing of probationary employees, agencies had to try to hastily reinstate workers who oversee nuclear weapons, manage the power grid and fight bird flu.
Among them were more than two dozen workers at the Bonneville Power Administration, a federal power supplier in the Pacific Northwest managed under the Energy Department.
Mike Braden, a Bonneville Power Administration employee and president of its employee union, said that by the time the workers were rehired they had already lost their access to the IT systems and their clearance to enter buildings. The advice from management upon their return was to 'pretend like nothing happened.'
'There's no thought to this, no coordination with the agencies,' Braden said of the White House. 'We have all this disruption, and we can't figure out how things are going to work moving forward.'
He said his phone is buzzing nonstop with questions from members about emails or memos from OPM or posts online from Musk.
'I'm getting hit up all through the weekend, all throughout the evening,' he said. 'Somebody will ping me, 'Hey I just saw this — what does this mean?' I'm like, 'Aw shit.''
Paul Dobias, a Department of Navy engineer and president of his union, said agency managers are so afraid of appearing hostile to the Trump administration's goals that they seem to pass along guidance without review. Many of those managers, he noted, could lose their civil service protections under Trump's Schedule F scheme.
'It just goes right through their doors where nobody takes the time to go and sit down and figure out, ′Does this all add up and make sense?′' Dobias said. 'I've seen a number of documents where it [appears] there's like five or six different people generating the documents … and they're not talking with each other.'
The turbulence has created an enormous amount of work for federal employees who also are union representatives and help enforce collective bargaining agreements. Coworkers are coming to them more than ever for clarity — and in many cases managers are steering them to the union representatives because the managers themselves don't have answers.
Smith, the union president at the Education Department, said supervisors seem to be at a loss when they're peppered with questions in online staff meetings about the administration's latest directive. She said she's heard a variation of one particular nonanswer more than once.
'They'll say, 'We all got the same email,'' Smith said.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


CNBC
24 minutes ago
- CNBC
Why Elon Musk turned against Trump's $5 trillion mega tax and spending bill
President Donald Trump is pushing to pass a sweeping tax and spending bill by July 4, but the proposal is already sparking fierce internal GOP debate. The bill combines 2017 tax cut extensions with new Trump-era proposals, including deductions on American-made auto loans and changes to child tax credits. But not everyone is on board. Elon Musk has launched a high-profile feud with Trump over the bill, and key Republican senators are warning that the bill could add trillions to the national debt.


Fox News
29 minutes ago
- Fox News
State Department reveals plan to deliver 'life-saving' meals to 1.4M starving children
FIRST ON FOX: The U.S. State Department and Secretary Marco Rubio punched back at claims that contracts providing Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Foods (RUTFs) have been halted and affirmed the agency will continue its commitment to "delivering critical humanitarian aid." "As USAID transitions under the State Department, our commitment to delivering critical humanitarian aid remains steadfast and aligned with America's foreign policy priorities," a senior State Department official told Fox News Digital in an exclusive statement. "We are proud to continue working with our local partners to deliver life-saving ready-to-use therapeutic food. Most recently, an additional $50 million in RUTFs was approved. This is enough to nourish over one million of the world's most vulnerable children." RUFTs' contracts and operations were previously overseen by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). However, oversight now lies with the State Department after USAID merged into the agency in February, largely influenced by then-Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) head Elon Musk. RUTFs are pre-packaged, nutrient-rich, ready-to-eat meals that help prevent malnutrition, mainly in children. Some countries even refer to RUTFs as a form of medicine. The State Department's comments come after Secretary Rubio faced questions from lawmakers on Capitol Hill in a May hearing, when Democratic Rep. Gabe Amo of Rhode Island confronted Rubio in a heated exchange, saying the agency was intentionally "freezing" RUTF aid to countries in need. "You need to figure out why they're not moving, because it isn't an impediment for us," Rubio fired back. Amo responded, "No, you need to figure [that] out, sir," and said that the secretary "refused to make" a commitment to ensuring effective RUTF distribution. "We're going to continue to do food aid," Rubio answered. "We're going to do more food aid than any other country on the planet, times 10." A source at the State Department revealed to Fox News Digital that key partnerships with non-profit RUTF producers, MANA and Edesia, have been active since March 2. Additionally, 1.4 million boxes of RUTFs were approved on May 26. Fox also obtained an internal document and action memorandum for Jeremy Lewin, a former DOGE employee now overseeing the transition of merging USAID with the State Department, from USAID's Dianna Darney de Salcedo. The document called for urgent approval to move food commodities and RUFTs that were stored in warehouses to be shipped for use. The sensitive but unclassified document also revealed a request to approve a new Title II award, valued at $35 million, which sources say was several times less than initially estimated, to cover the costs of warehouses, shipping overseas, transporting inland, programming and distribution. Fox News Digital spoke to MANA CEO Mark Moore, who outlined a detailed timeline of RUTF federal contract negotiations and the challenges the non-profit faced as USAID merged into the State Department at the beginning of 2025. At one point, before the State Department and the Trump administration proposed contracts in May, Moore told Fox News, "We're all looking at June and July running out of these old contracts and saying we're just going to have to close the doors." He noted that "if this new order didn't come out, we'd really be screwed going into the summer." "It is trending the right way, and we're thrilled," Moore added. Fox News Digital reached out to Rep. Gabe Amo and Edesia but did not receive a response. Preston Mizell is a writer with Fox News Digital covering breaking news. Story tips can be sent to and on X @MizellPreston


Forbes
an hour ago
- Forbes
Why It Will Take Strong Character To Address The Alarming U.S. Deficit
The public and bitter split between President Donald Trump and Elon Musk has once again spotlighted a glaring deficit in the personalities of both leaders. Although the breach erupted after Musk criticized Trump's 'big beautiful bill,' a tax and spending plan projected to result in an additional budgetary shortfall of $2.4 trillion over the next decade, that is not the deficit I'm referring to here. The void that has further polarized our country is a lack of character and values at the highest levels of government. Aside from the clear lack of decorum, the Trump-Musk feud has turned into an outrageous display of insults and retaliation. As the former chair and CEO of Baxter International, I can say that if such a level of public acrimony had happened in the corporate world, it would have raised serious governance concerns that would need to be addressed. Without values and a strong moral character, leadership is weakened. That's why in today's polarized environment, values-based leadership is not only relevant, it should also be a yardstick against which we evaluate leaders in business and government. As my good friend and former chair and CEO of Medtronic, Inc., Art Collins, wrote in an insightful LinkedIn post: 'While past performance should always be examined, I firmly believe that an individual's character is a crucial attribute to be considered when selecting and appraising a leader.' After reading his post, I asked Art to engage in a discussion on values, character, and leadership. Here are some highlights from our conversation. As the Trump-Musk breakup fills the news headlines and late-night television monologues, we cannot let ourselves be distracted by political theater playing out in Washington. This is a matter of character, not only among our leaders, but for our country and how we are perceived around the world.