After Elon Musk bought Donald Trump a second term in office, the president granted his benefactor the power to indiscriminately fire thousands of federal employees under the guise of saving taxpayer money. But as it turns out, letting a “move fast and break things” billionaire can whomever he pleased—including individuals with decades of institutional knowledge—wasn’t the best idea. In fact, one might even go so far as to call it a really bad one!
The Washington Post reports that “across the government, the Trump administration is scrambling to rehire many federal employees dismissed under DOGE’s staff-slashing initiatives after wiping out entire offices, in some cases imperiling key services such as weather forecasting and the drug approval process.” For example, in May, the Food and Drug Administration started sending ridiculously euphemistic emails to fired staff that read, “Notice of Reduction in Force (RIF) issued to you…is officially RESCINDED [and] you will not be separated from employment,” according to the Post, which reviewed the message. “You are expected to return to duty the next business day following your receipt of this notice.”
Other agencies, like the USDA, have similarly attempted to reverse their firings; for instance, a safety inspector told the Post that he was called one weekend and told he was being fired over “performance”—despite his having received positive reviews—only to be told days later that his termination was being canceled. Thousands of probationary employees with the Internal Revenue Service were similarly dismissed for fake “performance” matters, until the agency “reversed course and told them to show up to work in late May.” Staffers at the US Agency for International Development—which was wholesale gutted by Musk in February—opened their inboxes this month and found “an unexpected offer: Would you consider returning—to work for the State Department?”
The rush to rehire employees callously fired by DOGE comes as Musk and Trump go scorched-earth on each other, a public feud that shows few signs of abating. On Thursday, the president threatened to cancel Musk’s government contracts, and with all kinds of potential retribution on the table, it seems more than a little possible that Trump could shutter DOGE as a fuck-you to his backer turned enemy. Will he fall ass-backward into doing a good thing? Stay tuned.
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