By MAKENA KELLY
Engineers for Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, are working on new software that could assist mass firings of federal workers across government, sources tell WIRED.
The software, called AutoRIF, which stands for Automated Reduction in Force, was first developed by the Department of Defense more than two decades ago. Since then, it’s been updated several times and used by a variety of agencies to expedite reductions in workforce. Screenshots of internal databases reviewed by WIRED show that DOGE operatives have accessed AutoRIF and appear to be editing its code. There is a repository in the Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM) enterprise GitHub system titled “autorif” in a space created specifically for the director’s office—where Musk associates have taken charge—soon after Trump took office. Changes were made as recently as this weekend.
So far, federal agency firings have been conducted manually, with HR officials combing through employee registries and lists provided by managers, sources tell WIRED. Probationary employees—those who were recently hired, promoted, or otherwise changed roles—have been targeted first, as they lack certain civil service protections that would make them harder to fire. Thousands of workers have been terminated over the last few weeks across multiple agencies. With new software and the use of AI, some government employees fear that large-scale terminations could roll out even more quickly.
While DOGE could use AutoRIF as the DOD built it, multiple OPM sources speculated that the Musk-affiliated engineers could be building their own software on top of, or using code from, AutoRIF. In screenshots viewed by WIRED, Riccardo Biasini, a former engineer at Tesla and a director at The Boring Company, has seemingly been tasked with pruning AutoRIF on GitHub, with his name attached to the repository. “Remove obsolete versions of autorif,” one file description authored by a user with Biasini’s username on GitHub says.
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