Musk Team’s Push To Gut Federal Workforce Bypassed Key Trump Officials

Musk and Ramaswamy — Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk, with Musk’s son X, visit Capitol Hill last month. (Craig Hudson for The Washington Post)

By Emily Davies, Jeff Stein and Faiz Siddiqui

Billionaire Elon Musk’s influence over a traditionally nonpartisan agency that oversees the federal workforce culminated in the government’s stunning proposal Tuesday offering employees an inducement to resign, according to four people familiar with the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal talks.

The proposal, emailed late in the day to many of the nation’s 2.3 million federal workers, blindsided some advisers to President Donald Trump, including officials in the budget office and agencies that typically would be consulted in advance of such monumental changes to personnel and spending policies, the people said.

Since Trump took office, Musk has moved quickly to exert control over the Office of Personnel Management, the small independent agency that acts as a kind of human resources department for the federal government, issuing policy for agencies to implement. Musk personally visited the OPM’s offices Friday, and several of his longtime surrogates — including Anthony Armstrong, who helped Musk buy Twitter; Brian Bjelde, who ran human resources for Musk’s firm SpaceX; and Amanda Scales, who worked at Musk’s artificial intelligence firm, xAI — have been installed in senior leadership roles at its offices in downtown Washington, the people said.

Musk’s team also was critical to building the system that sent an email from “hr@opm.gov” to most federal employees across a dizzying array of agencies — a capacity that had not existed before last week. Musk touted the offer on X soon after it hit employees’ inboxes, arguing it was a crucial first step in reorganizing a federal bureaucracy he has long characterized as lazy and disloyal. The email emphasized the importance of a “reliable, loyal, trustworthy” workforce.

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