THE WASHINGTON POST: Donald Trump signs executive order expanding Elon Musk’s DOGE cost-cutting powers

Elon Musk’s federal cost-cutting effort has been further bolstered by a new executive order signed by President Donald Trump aimed at expanding the Department of Government Efficiency head’s power and reach.

Under the order federal agency heads are directed to justify and publicise government payments and travel expenses and eliminate superfluous contracts. The order, first reported by Semafor, instructs the General Services Administration to also craft a plan for eliminating “unnecessary” government real estate.

The latest development comes as Mr Musk’s US DOGE Service barrels toward a fresh round of firings, preparing to strike entire categories of jobs from the federal workforce as it escalates the Trump administration’s efforts to shrink the bureaucracy.

The GSA told its staff in an email that terminations are imminent. Social Security Administration leadership is under instruction to swiftly produce plans to cut its staff by half, according to two employees at the agency who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. And an office within the Labour Department that enforces equal employment opportunity laws is developing a plan to reduce its workforce by 90 percent, an internal document shows.

Meanwhile, leaders of some agencies have received a list of federal leases being terminated, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post, upending return-to-work plans and potentially leading to attrition.

“This serves as a notice that the agency will be conducting a Reduction in Force (RIF),” wrote Stephen Ehikian, acting administrator of the General Services Administration, in a Tuesday email to staff that did not detail how or when decisions will be made. “I offer my sincere and heartfelt gratitude for all GSA employees impacted by this decision.”

The moves come as the administration doubles down on the president’s February 11 mandate to “eliminat(e) waste, bloat, and insularity.”

Also Wednesday, local time, the federal government’s human resources agency told agencies to submit plans to drastically reduce their staff size by March 13. The seven-page memo from the personnel office leaves implementation of the White House’s vision to the agencies but instructed directors to “collaborate with their DOGE team leads.”

The firings target job categories and entire teams across most agencies. But positions “necessary to meet law enforcement, border security, national security, immigration enforcement, or public safety responsibilities” - a category that includes the executive office, postal workers and political appointees - are exempt, the personnel office memo states.

“They are setting the groundwork for a much more scaled attack on the federal workforce,” said Max Stier, president and chief executive of the Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan group that advocates for a stronger federal government. “It seems like they are using this to reshape the purpose of the government rather than execute it more efficiently.”

A Social Services Agency spokesperson, in a statement, said “we have not set any reduction targets, however we will continue to pursue efficiencies within the agency and align like missions.” A spokesperson for the Department of Labor did not immediately respond to questions.

The looming firings are an escalation in Mr Musk’s campaign to overhaul the federal workforce he sees as indolent and corrupt, a mission that Mr Trump has supported, despite some burgeoning resistance from inside his administration. Mr Musk joined Mr Trump at the first Cabinet meeting of his new term Wednesday afternoon, days after the White House told agencies they could ignore a directive from Mr Musk to effectively fire employees who did not send in bullet-point summaries of their work last week.

Mr Musk on Wednesday told reporters that the email had been “misinterpreted as a performance review,” when it was designed to be what he called a “pulse check review.” And he sidestepped questions about whether the 1 million workers who did not reply to the email would indeed be let go.

“Those people are on the bubble,” Mr Trump chimed in. “Maybe they’re going to be gone.”

The push to shrink the government through widespread firings may run into legal challenges. Historically, such firings have been used to dismiss federal workers whose jobs Congress had not fully funded, said Charles Kieffer, who spent several decades across administrations in the Office of Management and Budget and worked for Democrats on the Senate Appropriations Committee. That use of the procedure is clearly legal, he said.

Now, however, the Trump administration appears to be using the reduction in force process to eject workers who perform functions for which there is money - a test of presidential power as he essentially would be meddling with spending Congress already has approved, Mr Kieffer said.

“Is President Trump through executive orders unilaterally stopping the obligation of funds otherwise made available by Congress? To me that is an open question that this raises,” Mr Kieffer said.

The memo from the personnel office urges agencies to identify employees whose work is either not mandated by law or designated as essential during a government shutdown, appearing to put those positions at risk of elimination. But the guidance affords agencies room to decide which workers qualify under these criteria.

“There’s ways to tie almost every position to something that’s mandated, and there’s ways to interpret it in a way that’s very narrow,” said Kathy Stack, who served at the White House budget office for several decades.

At the Department of Labour, cuts proposed in a report reviewed by The Post would have a dramatic impact. The internal memo details plans to shrink the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs from more than 50 offices nationwide staffed by nearly 500 people to just four offices staffed by 50 people, the documents show. Those people will be focused on ensuring the office does the bare minimum to fulfill its duties required by law, the document shows.

DOGE staff appear to be using the Office of Personnel Management, the federal agency that enacts HR policy, as a sort of test case for the approach, according to two people familiar with the matter and internal OPM messages obtained by The Post.

Staff at OPM have developed a large spreadsheet of employees at the agency and are listing various characteristics of each employee - from years of service to performance - that will be used to decide whether to fire or keep them on staff, the people said.

OPM leadership has pushed to eliminate several teams within the agency - including its entire communications team, the office of procurement and most of its privacy office, according to a person familiar - and is next going to cut the roughly 70-person Human Capital Data Management and Modernisation team, according to the people and internal messages reviewed by The Post.

The GSA has also cancelled more than 250 “vacant/underutilised” leases, DOGE said in a social media post on Wednesday. DOGE claimed the cancelled spaces would save more than $US100 million ($158m) per year, but government officials say the eliminations are also likely to lead to a reduction in the civilian workforce, as Mr Musk and Mr Trump require most workers to return to the office.

The GSA is moving to cancel leases for hundreds of federal offices used by the IRS, including locations where there are taxpayer assistance centres, internal records show, and are for office space all over the country - including Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin and at least a half-dozen other states. Some of the cancelled leases make it impossible to know what to do with some personnel also being mandated to come back to the office, according to one official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorised speak to the media.

“Where are we supposed to tell them to go?” he said.

A GSA spokesperson in a statement said it is “committed to treating all of our employees respectfully and fairly, in accordance with all applicable laws and bargaining unit agreements, during this process.”

Some federal workers fired by Mr Trump appear to be fighting back. Since early February, more than 3,600 federal employees have filed appeals with the US Merit Systems Protection Board, according to records obtained by The Post.

The board, which adjudicates federal employee discipline and hiring practices, typically sees fewer than 100 cases per week, the records show. It was already understaffed as of January and lost people to the Trump administration’s resignation offer, said two employees of the board, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Now, the board will struggle to handle the massive load of cases, the employees said. “This is going to be bad,” one said.

As the board faces an onslaught of cases, it is already entangled in a fight with the Trump administration. The administration last month fired Biden-appointed board chair Cathy Harris in a one-sentence email, leading Harris to sue.

A federal judge has temporarily reinstated Ms Harris while the lawsuit proceeds.

The Washington Post