A group of civil service employees in the United States have announced their resignation from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), in the latest sign of discord within the administration of President Donald Trump.
The 21 employees issued a joint letter to DOGE leadership, which was also obtained by media outlets including The Associated Press.
In their statement on Tuesday, they accused DOGE of carrying out ideological attacks and risking the integrity of government systems.
“We swore to serve the American people and uphold our oath to the Constitution across presidential administrations,” the employees wrote. “However, it has become clear that we can no longer honor those commitments.”
The workers involved in the resignation included engineers, data scientists and product managers, all of whom were previously employed by top technology firms including Google and Amazon.
“We will not use our skills as technologists to compromise core government systems, jeopardise Americans’ sensitive data, or dismantle critical public services,” they explained. “We will not lend our expertise to carry out or legitimise DOGE’s actions.”
Turmoil at DOGE
The resignations are the latest fallout from Trump’s scorched-earth approach to downsizing and reshaping the federal workforce.
Shortly after being elected to a second term in November, Trump tapped billionaire Elon Musk to oversee DOGE, a new panel whose purview was ambiguous.
At first, it was not clear how DOGE would function: whether it would exist outside of government or within it, for example. Critics also pointed out that independent oversight agencies already existed to ensure government efficiency.
But on his first day back in office, Trump signed an executive order transforming the United States Digital Service — a preexisting office — into DOGE.
The Digital Service was created in 2014 to address technology hurdles. Its formation had been prompted by the White House’s struggles to launch a medical insurance portal for Americans, as part of then-President Barack Obama’s healthcare reforms.
The employees who resigned on Tuesday were part of the Digital Service before it became DOGE.
They warned that their office had been visited by individuals wearing White House visitors’ passes, who interrogated employees about their political leanings and work experience.
They also denounced the layoffs that have been visited upon the DOGE staff. Earlier this month, about 40 staffers in the office were laid off — a drastic cut, according to Tuesday’s resignation letter.
The letter-writers warned that such sudden, steep declines in the workforce would undermine the White House’s ability to handle technology-based projects.
“These highly skilled civil servants were working to modernize Social Security, veterans’ services, tax filing, health care, disaster relief, student aid, and other critical services,” the resignation letter states.
“Their removal endangers millions of Americans who rely on these services every day. The sudden loss of their technology expertise makes critical systems and American’s data less safe.”
Only about 65 employees remained in the office after the February layoffs — and most were assigned to participate in the government downsizing DOGE has overseen.
A third of that remaining group resigned on Tuesday.
A broader backlash
With responsibilities ranging from national security to intelligence gathering, healthcare to education, the federal government is the largest employer in the US.
More than two million employees work in some capacity for the federal government, with thousands more — including in industries like agriculture and technology — reliant on government contracts.
But upon taking office, Trump has moved swiftly to slash the employee base, which he has accused of harbouring “Biden bureaucrats”, a reference to his predecessor, former President Joe Biden.
Many civil service members, however, are nonpartisan and help ensure the smooth functioning of the government across different administrations.
Trump and Musk have also attempted to shutter whole agencies, including the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which was established under an act of Congress. That has, in turn, queued up a legal battle over the powers of the presidency.
The mass layoffs and buyout offers have also sparked legal challenges from unions, states and individual employees, who argue their rights are being trampled.
Experts have warned that Musk and Trump’s approach could have particularly devastating effects for individual citizens, who could see data mix-ups affect their day-to-day lives, from Social Security payments to the potential for privacy breaches.
“‘Move fast and break things’ may be acceptable to someone who owns a business and owns the risk,” Cordell Schachter, who until last month was the chief information officer at the US Department of Transportation, told The Associated Press.
“But when you break things in government, you’re breaking things that belong to people who didn’t sign up for that.”
Already, fractures have started to emerge within the Trump White House — and even between the president and Musk himself.
On Saturday, Musk had announced on his social media platform X that federal employees had until Monday to respond to an email with a five-point list describing their work over the past week. Failure to comply, he warned, would be understood as a resignation.
But the backlash was swift, with labour unions and politicians denouncing the move as illegal.
Some government agencies even told their staff to ignore Musk’s demand. By Monday, the Office of Personnel Management had announced to all departments and agencies that they could overlook the request without fear for their jobs.
Some Republican lawmakers have also openly questioned Musk’s slash-and-burn approach.
Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, for instance, has criticised Musk’s firings as irresponsible and disrespectful to long-time government employees.
“This is not how we treat any of our workforce. It’s not how we treat our federal employees. They deserve better,” she said at a town hall event last week. “You do not treat people in this manner who have been good public servants.”
Murkowski also slammed Musk’s request for an emailed summary of federal workers’ achievements.
‘“Our public workforce deserves to be treated with dignity and respect for the unheralded jobs they perform,” she wrote in a post on X. “The absurd weekend email to justify their existence wasn’t it.”
But Musk on Tuesday appeared to double down on his threats on Monday.
“Subject to the discretion of the President, they will be given another chance,” Musk wrote on X. “Failure to respond a second time will result in termination.”