Musk Fires The People Actually Doing What DOGE Pretends To Do

Failures

from the efficiency-is-too-woke dept

Look, I’m no rocket-building super-genius*, but I have this weird idea that if you want to make an organization more efficient, you might start by talking to the people who are… already making it efficient? A crazy idea, I know.

(*Neither are some other people who pretend to be).

But Elon Musk had a different idea. His approach to bringing efficiency to government was to first identify all the people actually making government more efficient, and then systematically remove them from their jobs. It’s a bold strategy!

Elon Musk has launched a systematic purge of the government’s most effective technical innovators. On Friday at midnight, he abruptly fired the entire 18F team — a group of technical experts who had spent over a decade making government services actually work better for Americans. This followed his earlier moves that gut the US Digital Service (USDS).

These weren’t just any government techies. 18F were the people who built login.gov, created the IRS’s Direct File platform, and ensured government websites were properly encrypted. In other words, they were doing exactly what Musk claims DOGE is supposed to do — but with actual results rather than 4chan-inspired dank memes.

And this is just part of a broader pattern. The purge began just as the Musk/Trump administration took office, with the illegal firing of 17 Inspectors General — the very officials responsible for investigating and stopping waste, fraud, and abuse in government.

These would be the last people you would want to fire if you actually wanted to get rid of waste, fraud and abuse. They are the people you would fire if your intention was to loot the government, and you didn’t want anyone to call out the fact that you were doing so.

The destruction of 18F and USDS is particularly revealing of DOGE’s true priorities. Both agencies were created a decade ago with a simple mission: recruit talented technologists who believe in public service to make government work better. And unlike DOGE’s meme-driven destructive and harmful publicity stunts, they actually delivered results.

Want to see what real government efficiency looks like? Prior to Musk’s purge, 18F was self-funded through payments from the agencies it helped — meaning it cost taxpayers nothing while saving millions by preventing agencies from being gouged by traditional government IT contractors. USDS, meanwhile, had been quietly modernizing critical government systems, from veterans’ healthcare to immigration services.

In fact, DOGE itself only “exists” because Trump couldn’t legally create a new department without congressional approval. So instead, he simply “renamed” USDS as the “US DOGE Service” — and then proceeded to gut the very capabilities that made it effective.

So what happens when you put inexperienced, incurious, overly confident jackasses in charge of complex government systems? Well, first they get rid of the experts who might point out their mistakes. Two weeks ago, Musk laid off about a third of the USDS staff. Then, in what might be called a vote of no confidence (if you’re being polite) or a mass exodus from a burning building (if you’re being honest), another third of the remaining staff quit in protest. Their resignation letter didn’t mince words:

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.

The resigning USDS staffers painted a disturbing picture of DOGE’s operations. The new team’s idea of “vetting” consisted of rushed 15-minute interviews by unidentified individuals who seemed more interested in political loyalty than technical competence:

On January 21st, we completed 15-minute interviews with individuals wearing White House visitor badges. 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. This process created significant security risks.

This cavalier approach to security wasn’t an isolated incident. Prior to Musk abruptly terminating 18F late last Friday, his team demanded immediate access to sensitive government systems while bypassing standard security protocols. It’s a pattern that suggests either stunning incompetence or deliberate sabotage.

The timing and manner of 18F’s termination are particularly revealing. This wasn’t a cost-cutting measure — as mentioned, 18F was self-funded through its work with other agencies. This wasn’t about improving efficiency — they were already saving taxpayers millions by preventing agencies from being gouged by traditional contractors. This was about eliminating a team of proven technical experts who might stand in the way of DOGE’s more destructive ambitions.

18F was what Musk and his ignorant fans were telling us DOGE was going to do. But, because one of the brain-wormed idiots that Musk follows on ExTwitter claimed they were “far left” Elon decided he had to fire them all. Even Community Notes knew that Elon was full of shit, but it didn’t stop him from killing the group:

Apparently it’s “far left” and worth disbanding a group for… [checks notes] making it easier for people to file their taxes for free. Who knew?

In response, the 18F team has published a letter to the American public that lets their record of non-partisan public service speak for itself:

For over 11 years, 18F has been proudly serving you to make government technology work better. We are non-partisan civil servants. 18F has worked on hundreds of projects, all designed to make government technology not just efficient but effective, and to save money for American taxpayers.

They noted that when the guy Musk inserted over them, Thomas Shedd, came in he told them they were “the gold standard” of government techies.

When former Tesla engineer Thomas Shedd took the position of TTS director and met with TTS including 18F on February 3, 2025, he acknowledged that the group is the “gold standard” of civic technologists and that “you guys have been doing this far longer than I’ve been even aware that your group exists.” He repeatedly emphasized the importance of the work, and the value of the talent that the teams bring to government.

But that was before his boss decided they were too woke for making it easier for people to file taxes or use other government services.

They also note that Team DOGE again violated security procedures just before they were fired:

Before today’s RIF, DOGE members and GSA political appointees demanded and took access to IT systems that hold sensitive information. They ignored security precautions. Some who pushed back on this questionable behavior resigned rather than grant access. Others were met with reprisals like being booted from work communication channels.

As Don Moynihan explains, DOGE’s actions reveal the fundamental lie at its core. The promise of “letting techies make government more efficient” was appealing even to those who understood government’s complexities. Lots of people who weren’t paying close attention thought the idea of DOGE made sense: let’s let some smart techies fix government. But DOGE was never about bringing in technical expertise and efficiency — it’s about systematically eliminating it:

For those who don’t know much about government, the idea of Elon Musk as a serious tech guy who could shake up how the public sector work was appealing. Even people who do know a lot about government were hopeful.

Such hopes now look naive. Musk is not just ignorant about what government does, he chooses to celebrate and make decisions based on that ignorance, defaulting to accusations of fraud to explain things he does not want to understand. He is not interested in fixing government, but in destroying key parts of government, and that takes no great skill.

Want to understand what actually made government more efficient? Ask Dan Tangherlini, who ran GSA when 18F was created. He spelled it out pretty clearly:

We created 18F while I was GSA Administrator as a way to transform agencies’ ability to develop, improve, and purchase technology that enhanced program performance and efficiency. 18F grew to include the Presidential Innovations Fellows program and was the long-term support for US Digital Service’s (USDS) response and policy work…

18F was popular among the agencies; annoying to the contracting community; and frightening to the contractors and consultants who could charge unsuspecting agencies whatever they could get away with. Small, but mighty, 18F was the OG DOGE, but with a mission to create actual efficiency, and more importantly, effectiveness. These were smart, technical, caring, dedicated, and patriotic public servants. Their dismissal with a late-night email demonstrates that this administration either doesn’t know how to effectively enhance government efficiency, or really doesn’t care.

This is all going exactly according to plan, by the way. Not the plan that was sold to the public — “let’s bring Silicon Valley efficiency to government!” — but the actual plan to effectively destroy the institutions that make the US operate. Because it turns out there’s a really simple way to tell if someone is serious about making government more efficient:

1. Do they talk to the people already making government more efficient?
2. Do they look at what’s already working and try to scale it?
3. Do they respect basic security protocols designed to protect Americans’ data?

If the answer to all of these is “no, but we post a lot of AI-generated memes on social media and post blatantly false data about how much we’re saving” then perhaps efficiency isn’t really the goal.

The punchline here isn’t just that DOGE is incompetent (though it is) or that Musk doesn’t understand government (though he doesn’t). The punchline is that we had actual expert techies making government work better, and they got replaced by people whose main qualification appears to be their willingness to break things and their loyalty to Elon Musk. The burglars aren’t just in the house — they’re livestreaming the robbery and calling it home improvement.

And that’s the real tragedy here: it doesn’t take a rocket scientist — or even a media-propped up faux “rocket-building super-genius” — to make government work better. It just takes competent professionals who care about doing the job right and actually care about the American public. We had them. We fired them. And now we’re all less safe for it.

Filed Under: 18f, doge, elon musk, usds