President-elect Donald Trump and his advisor Elon Musk have a message for federal work-from-home employees: return to work or you’re fired.
Trump, who doesn’t take office until January 20, 2025, has put the word out that he plans to kill remote work.
Days after Trump won the election, he appointed Tesla founder Elon Musk and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy to lead a task force called the “Department of Government Efficiency,” or DOGE, to cut government waste.
Among their recommendations is to fire thousands of non-essential government workers, including remote workers and civilian employees.
Musk believes the problem will take care of itself if work-from-home jobs end.
The government employs 2 million workers. Musk and Ramaswamy plan to fire 500,000 workers on Day 1 of Trump’s administration.
Those employees who don’t return to work can stay home and search the Wanted ads for a new job.
Musk fired or laid off 80% of Twitter’s workforce when he purchased the social media app for $44 billion.
“With a decisive electoral mandate and a 6–3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court, DOGE has a historic opportunity for structural reductions in the federal government,” Musk and Ramaswamy wrote in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal published on Wednesday.
Musk and Ramaswamy plan to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget, nearly a third of the $6.75 trillion fiscal total.
