Musk and Ramaswamy float ending remote work for federal employees and ‘large-scale firings’

Incoming Trump administration advisers Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy floated ending remote work for federal workers Wednesday, calling the practice a “privilege” left over from the pandemic. 

The two tech industry figures raised the idea in an opinion piece published online in The Wall Street Journal, saying it would be a straightforward means for shrinking the federal workforce. 

“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,” the two men wrote. 

That could affect more than 1 million federal workers. About 1.1 million federal civilian employees, or 46% of civilian personnel, are eligible for some amount of telework, according to a report in August from the Office of Management and Budget. About 228,000 employees, or 10% of personnel, are in remote positions with no expectation that they work in-person on any regular or recurring basis, the report said. 

The Biden administration ordered federal agencies in 2023 to “substantially increase meaningful in-person work,” but it also left some flexibility in place, citing operational costs like office space, the need to recruit “top talent” and other factors. 

Musk and Ramaswamy are co-heads of what President-elect Donald Trump has called a Department of Government Efficiency, although their roles are advisory and it won’t be an official department unless Congress passes a law creating it. The acronym, DOGE, is a reference to an internet meme and cryptocurrency that Musk has promoted for years. 

The suggestions made in the opinion piece are some of the first concrete policy suggestions the pair have advocated for in relation to their new roles.

In the lead up to Trump’s election and during the transition, Musk has been an increasingly present and influential figure in Trump’s orbit, repeatedly appearing with Trump in meetings with lawmakers and world leaders.

Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, has taken a strict approach to remote work at his companies since the Covid-19 pandemic began to wind down. Musk announced a return-to-office policy at Tesla and SpaceX in 2022, ordering employees back for a minimum of 40 hours per week on site, though his edict was hampered at the time by a lack of space and resources, CNBC reported at the time. 

The future of remote work for office-based employees is hotly debated. While some companies such as Amazon have joined Tesla and SpaceX in calling workers back, other companies are using remote work as a recruiting and retention tool that appears to have some staying power. 

Some unionized federal workers have criticized Musk and Ramaswamy, saying they don’t know what they’re doing. 

“It is clear that Musk and Ramaswamy simply do not understand how the federal workforce is staffed or operated,” said Randy Erwin, national president of the National Federation of Federal Employees, in a statement about DOGE’s work generally. 

Erwin said the two tech figures “make absurd claims about government waste and bash dedicated federal employees.” His union says it represents 110,000 federal employees. 

In their opinion piece, the two also suggested other ways to cut federal jobs including “large-scale firings” and the “relocation of federal agencies out of the Washington area.” They also outlined a series of other ideas for cutting federal spending and repealing government regulations and cited recent Supreme Court precedent that they said would give Trump wide leeway.