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Musk and Ramaswamy called remote work a Covid-era privilege and pushed for five-day office week, a move they think will trigger mass resignations.
Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy | AP Photo/File
Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy outlined their plans for the newly established Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), prioritising more efficient work practices by ending the remote work culture at the federal office.
As part of their effort to trim the size of the government, the two entrepreneurs, tasked by US President-elect Donald Trump to lead the DOGE, suggested that eliminating remote work would result in mass resignations that would help them achieve their goal of a smaller but more efficient government.
Writing in a joint op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, the billionaire entrepreneur and the biotech founder said, “Requiring federal employees to come to the office five days a week would result in a wave of voluntary terminations that we welcome.”
“If federal employees don’t want to show up, American taxpayers shouldn’t pay them for the Covid-era privilege of staying home,” Musk and Ramaswamy wrote.
Data released by the Office of Management and Budget revealed that nearly 1.1 million federal employees – nearly half of the government’s civilian workforce – are eligible for telework.
In an August 2024 report, the agency noted that about 228,000 employees, or 10% of civilian personnel, work fully remotely with “no expectation that they [work] in-person on any regular or recurring basis.”
Notably, the report came to a public forum years after President Joe Biden, in 2022, declared that the vast majority of federal workers would once again work in person.
Musk, the billionaire owner of SpaceX, Tesla and X, and Ramaswamy, the founder of pharmaceutical company Roivant Sciences, argued that the system, shielded by civil-service protections, has grown into an “antidemocratic” apparatus.
They added that it burdens the taxpayers with unnecessary costs and pledged to enforce sweeping reforms through DOGE in the US.
While pushing for a five-day office week, a move they think will trigger mass resignations, both the entrepreneurs said, “If federal employees don’t want to show up, American taxpayers shouldn’t pay them for the Covid-era privilege of staying home.”
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