More than 20 Department of Government Efficiency (“DOGE”) employees resigned Tuesday (Feb. 25), saying they would no longer aid in leader Elon Musk’s technological overhaul of federal services.
The group — made up of technologists previously employed at digital giants like Google and Amazon — comprised about one-third of the U.S. Digital Service, the government office subsumed and rebranded as DOGE by Musk following President Donald Trump’s instatement. Musk previously fired around 40 digital service staffers after taking over the office.
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The remaining members posted their call to action as part of WeTheBuilders, a recently-launched collective and website created by current and public federal workers who decry Trump’s federal efficiency plans and share inside stories about DOGE’s overhaul. The group calls themselves “The official resistance team of the U.S. Digital Service.”
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“We swore to serve the American people and uphold our oath to the Constitution across presidential administrations. However, it has become clear that we can no longer honor those commitments… We will not use our skills as technologists to compromise core government systems, jeopardize Americans’ sensitive data, or dismantle critical public services. We will not lend our expertise to carry out or legitimize DOGE’s actions,” wrote the Digital Service employees in a joint resignation letter to Trump’s chief of staff, obtained by the Associated Press. “These actions are not compatible with the mission we joined the United States Digital Service to carry out: to deliver better services to the American people through technology and design.”
According to the employees, unaffiliated White House visitors who refused to identify themselves entered the Digital Services offices in January, aggressively interviewing current employees about their political stances and expertise, while hinting at Musk’s overhaul. Digital Services staff said those actions, and more, presented an alarming breach of security protocol. “DOGE’s actions — firing technical experts, mishandling sensitive data and breaking critical systems — contradict their stated mission of ‘modernizing federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity,” they wrote.
Last week, Musk sent out a mass email (and statement via social media platform X) to federal workers, telling them that they needed to send a documented report of all the work they had accomplished over the last work week or effectively resign from their positions. The Office of Personnel Management, the federal government’s human resources department, announced yesterday that response to the email is “voluntary.”
The White House quickly responded to the DOGE resignations, dismissing the group’s criticisms. “Anyone who thinks protests, lawsuits, and lawfare will deter President Trump must have been sleeping under a rock for the past several years,” said White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. “President Trump will not be deterred from delivering on the promises he made to make our federal government more efficient and more accountable to the hardworking American taxpayers.”
