Twenty-one staffers of the Elon Musk-helmed Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, have resigned, saying in a letter sent Tuesday to White House chief of staff Susie Wiles that they “will not lend our expertise to carry out or legitimize DOGE’s actions.”
The staffers said they were part of the U.S. Digital Service, the unit of the White House created in 2014 by former President Barack Obama. The office was renamed the United States DOGE Service by President Trump via an executive order on Inauguration Day.
These officials wrote that they “will not use our skills as technologists to compromise core government systems, jeopardize Americans’ sensitive data, or dismantle critical public services.”
The letter, which was obtained by CBS News, and resignations were first reported by The Associated Press.
In response to news of the letter, DOGE official Katie Miller posted on X, “These were full remote workers who hung Trans flags from their workplaces.”
In their letter, the staffers noted that the day after Inauguration Day, they did 15-minute interviews with individuals wearing White House visitor badges.
“Several of these interviewers refused to identify themselves, asked questions about political loyalty, attempted to pit colleagues against each other, and demonstrated limited technical ability,” the letter said. “This process created significant security risks and was designed to intimidate government employees.”
They then said on Feb. 16, DOGE representatives started to try and integrate them into their efforts. They said their actions (“firing technical experts, mishandling sensitive data, and breaking critical systems”) contradict the mission laid out in the executive order creating DOGE.
That executive order said DOGE was created to modernize “federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity.”
All the names signed onto the letter are anonymous.
The news comes as DOGE’s cuts in the federal workforce have caused chaos across multiple departments. DOGE employees have been going through data systems at agencies, identifying thousands of jobs as redundant or unaligned with the administration’s views, prompting mass terminations by federal agency heads.
Over the weekend, Musk posted on his social media site X that he had sent an email to all government employees asking them to list five things they had done in the past week or be fired. But several department heads, including Defense Department Secretary Pete Hegseth and FBI director Kash Patel — both loyalists to Mr. Trump — have instructed their employees not to respond.
Musk’s role at the helm of the agency has been questioned. While Mr. Trump’s executive order said DOGE would have an administrator, his administration said in a court challenge that Musk is not the administrator of the DOGE Service nor an employee of the organization. In a separate case on Monday, a federal judge in Washington on Monday questioned the constitutionality of DOGE and Musk’s role.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Tuesday did not directly answer if Musk is the DOGE administrator, and said she would not reveal from the podium who the administrator is.
“The president tasked Elon Musk to oversee the DOGE effort,” Leavitt said “There are career officials and there are political appointees who are helping run DOGE on a day-to-day basis.”
