DOGE employees are revolting against Elon Musk and Donald Trump and are signing a dramatic resignation letter in which they are vowing not to defund essential public services. "We swore to serve the American people and uphold our oath to the Constitution across presidential administrations," wrote 21 former DOGE staffers in a letter first reported by AP.
These ex-workers shared that they refuse to "dismantle critical public services," accusing their colleagues—who joined Musk's so-called "nerd army" aimed at reducing federal spending—of actively working to undermine them. DOGE has been on a firing spree under the leadership of Musk but the resignations now pose a challenge for the agency.
Revolt Against Musk
All of the employees who have now resigned were part of the U.S. Digital Service (USDS), a small government agency of about 100 staff members that Musk transformed into DOGE. Since the billionaire took control of the department, DOGE has fired 40 employees.
Over the past month, DOGE has aggressively pushed through multiple federal agencies, demanding access to sensitive data, conducting in-depth performance reviews with staff, and most recently, requesting email records detailing federal employees' weekly accomplishments.
"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 staffers revealed in their letter, seemingly slamming the DOGE workers who quizzed them as hostile.
"This process created significant security risks," they wrote.
Many of the employees, formerly from big tech companies, pretended to be disheartened by the extensive DOGE federal review, which the group claims have already saved around $65 billion in taxpayer funds.
According to DOGE, those billions in savings resulted from cutting various expenditures, including contracts for foreign aid, DEI education programs, and recently hired federal workers, among other areas.
"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 former DOGE employee's resignation letter says.
"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."
Big Trouble for DOGE
The wave of resignations comes at a chaotic time for DOGE. After an email—sent to nearly all federal employees from a sender labeled "HR," but actually originating from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM)—asked, "What did you do last week?", several of Trump's top officials had to step in to clarify the vague message from Musk's team.
Newly confirmed FBI Director Kash Patel ordered his staff to ignore the email, while the Pentagon, under Pete Hegseth's leadership, also issued a statement advising employees not to respond to the request from "HR."
However, in a recent post on X, the platform's owner and DOGE's head warned that anyone who ignores the next email will be fired.
"Subject to the discretion of the President, they will be given another chance," Musk said of employees who did not respond to his first email.
"Failure to respond a second time will result in termination," the post continued.
According to the AP, about one-third of the remaining DOGE employees who had carried over from the U.S. Digital Service resigned on Tuesday following the release of the letter. "We will not use our skills as technologists to compromise core government systems, jeopardize Americans' sensitive data, or dismantle critical public services," their letter states.
"We will not lend our expertise to carry out or legitimize DOGE's actions."
