A group of 21 civil servants with technical expertise resigned Tuesday instead of helping billionaire Elon Musk and his government’s efficiency ministry push for a series of changes in the federal government.
Government employees have worked for the technology-centric unit of the U.S. Digital Services, which Mr. Musk and President Trump renamed as U.S. Dooger Services. The resignation will compile about a third of the departments that have been reduced by layoffs.
“We will not use our skills as technicians to harm core government systems and endanger Americans,” the resignation team wrote in a letter to Mr. Trump’s chief of staff Susie Wiles. Sensitive data or tear down critical public services. “We do not borrow our expertise to execute or legalize Doge’s actions.”
The resignation was reported earlier by the Associated Press as Mr. Musk and his allies began to fundamentally reshape the size and scope of the federal government, lay off employees, end contracts and attempt to close the entire agency. Recently, Mr. Musk ordered them to detail the conditions of their work in the last week to explain their work in detail, confusing millions of federal employees. Several Trump-appointed people ordered employees of their agency to ignore Mr. Musk’s instructions even if workers received conflicting information about whether they needed to comply with it.
The massive resignation of the technology sector is the latest move by federal workers to boycott President Trump and Mr. Musk’s extreme overhaul of the administration. Other civil servants also conducted public protests, filed lawsuits, and even filmed staff working for Mr. Musk’s team to identify them.
“Doge’s actions – fired technologists, improperly sensitive data and disrupted critical systems – contradict the task they stated, namely “modern federal technology and software to maximize government efficiency and productivity.” “These actions are incompatible with our mission to join digital services in the United States: to provide better services to the American people through technology and design.”
