Business Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy suggest DOGE will end work-from-home for federal employees - part of their effort to trim the size of government.

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Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy on Wednesday floated ending work-from-home privileges for federal employees as part of their effort to trim the size of government.

The two entrepreneurs, tasked by President-elect Donald Trump last week to lead the newly formed “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE), suggested in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that eliminating remote work would result in mass resignations that would help them achieve their goal of a smaller, more efficient, government.

“Requiring federal employees to come to the office five days a week would result in a wave of voluntary terminations that we welcome,” Musk and Ramaswamy wrote.

“If federal employees don’t want to show up, American taxpayers shouldn’t pay them for the Covid-era privilege of staying home,” they added.

Roughly 1.1 million federal employees – nearly half of the government’s civilian workforce – are eligible for telework, according to the Office of Management and Budget.

About 228,000 employees, or 10% of civilian personnel, work fully remote with “no expectation that they [work] in-person on any regular or recurring basis,” the agency noted in an August 2024 report.

The report was released two years after President Biden, in his 2022 State of the Union address, declared that “The vast majority of federal workers will once again work in person.”

Musk, the billionaire owner of SpaceX, Tesla and X, and Ramaswamy, the founder of pharmaceutical company Roivant Sciences, argue that Trump has the authority to “curtail administrative overgrowth” through several means, including “large-scale firings,”relocating “federal agencies out of the Washington area” and scrapping remote work.

The two men revealed that DOGE plans “to work with embedded appointees in agencies to identify the minimum number of employees required” for the agency to “perform its constitutionally permissible and statutorily mandated functions.”

Musk and Ramaswamy noted that the fired federal workers will be “treated with respect” and that “DOGE’s goal is to help support their transition into the private sector.”

“The president can use existing laws to give them incentives for early retirement and to make voluntary severance payments to facilitate a graceful exit,” they said.

 

[Casshern]

Not to mention the poor schmucks who have to be in the "open office" rooms and have to listen to Fat Brenda slurp her giant Stanley of sugar water (optional coffee) and munch on snacks all day.

Open concept offices are the fucking worst; it’s like going back to 1st grade with computer lab. Half the time you got at least one management smuck lording over you and gross people existing within your purview. If I’m gonna be a wagie then give me my cagie, it’s like a mini office. I can have a small bookshelf, some pictures of the missus and kids, a cork/white board, and most importantly focus on my fucking work.

 

[Nonga Tork]

Open concept offices are the fucking worst; it’s like going back to 1st grade with computer lab. Half the time you got at least one management smuck lording over you and gross people existing within your purview. If I’m gonna be a wagie then give me my cagie, it’s like a mini office. I can have a small bookshelf, some pictures of the missus and kids, a cork/white board, and most importantly focus on my fucking work.

Thanks to hotelling, no you don't since you don't have a set desk but get desks on a first come, first serve basis.

 

[MrJokerRager]

The west was slow and dumb in the first place in adapting to modern telecoms technology and getting people working remotely, and no part of the west was more slow, dumb and behind the times than government. Most of this thread is arguing in favor of going back to the paradigm that was sluggish and backward even before the shutdowns.

I think its a generational attitude, setting aside that most gubmint workers are not sympathetic folks.

Or an attitude of basically "I had to commute long hours so these assholes have to as well".

 

[Nonga Tork]

I think its a generational attitude, setting aside that most gubmint workers are not sympathetic folks.

Or an attitude of basically "I had to commute long hours so these assholes have to as well".

Being the boss man is also much less fun when you can't stare out at the people who have to obey you.

 

[George Lucas]

I think the main point of this is so Vivek and Musk can see what departments are actually doing work.

A company can look at its financials and be happy with that. That’s not how the government works at all. Remote workers are a black box and that flies in the face of a public government.

 

[Nonga Tork]

I think the main point of this is so Vivek and Musk can see what departments are actually doing work.

A company can look at its financials and be happy with that. That’s not how the government works at all. Remote workers are a black box and that flies in the face of a public government.

They're no more or less of black box than in office workers. If they're production based, it's just as easy to monitor at home as in the office. If they're not, it's pretty much just as hard in the office as at home. Somebody sitting in a cubicle doesn't actually mean they're working, after all.

 

[KiwiFuzz2]

I don't think any of these people understand how much of the economy in a vast swath of the West is propped up by federal dollars.

Fuck Donald Trump, he's from New York City. There are multiple counties in California where feds are something like 10% of the total workforce. Some of those dudes are like Lead Culvert Inspector for the Inyo National Forest, but that money goes towards keeping the fuckin' Vons or whatever open year round. Which helps Nehemiah and Tekoa and their 10 Mormon kids keep that cattle ranch going without having to go into Reno once a month.

I don't think Trump gets the rural west at all, and I sure as shit don't trust these tech bros to know what kind of funding the fuckin' BLM weed team should get.

 

[MadDisaster]

I can't speak for anyone else, but any efficiency loss at the company I work for doing WFH was probably made up for by fewer sick days, less time off for child care, bad weather, and PTO being planned more often than not. Having more of your workforce available when expected is usually helpful for efficiency.

I understand the idea of trying to get people to quit, but a policy like this doesn't guarantee that you get rid of the right people. Even when you're amputating, you don't go in blindfolded and hope the correct limb is the only one removed. This honestly seems like they aren't taking the idea of government efficiency seriously, and are just looking at lazy shortcuts to make the numbers look better.

 

[Northern Blockhead]

I had no idea, real estate was worth that much to him.

I just find the idea of stopping remote work in the current moment, to be just malicious given most of America's city mayors are planning to defy Trump on deporting all the illegal filth and the pozzed corruption still remains.

It makes when you consider that companies that own the office space they occupy are huge money sinks. Thanks to the pandemic and people realizing that they can work from home, the value of these properties is tanking.

 

[Standardized Profile]

Too bad any savings will be offset by the gigantic and growing interest payments on the national debt. Already eats up more than the entire DoD. If we get more trillion-dollar plus deficits like last time this is just smoke and mirrors to make it look like they're doing something.

There won't be any savings. It is vastly more expensive to maintain hundreds of buildings and house tens of thousands of workers, than it is to offload those costs onto the worker who maintains a home office at their own expense.

 

[HOMO FOR LIFE RETURNS]

How about just get rid of workers.

 

[Criticallacitirc]

Working from home just means you end up working all the time. It’s good to physically separate your work life from your rest time.

Go read the reviews of Xs on glass door. You'll see a common theme of long hours, no work/life balance. At least they're in the office though. Imagine how worse it would be if they were working from home.

I swear some of you have never worked a job where you're in an office. It's not a factory job where you have a steady output. You have a number of tasks you have to complete each week and then adhoc projects you work on. Your work load ebs & flows. So there might be weeks where you only have 25 hours of work, but then the next week it will be 60. The idea that pre remote work people in offices were just working at their max capacity every hour of the day and never fucking off is retarded.

If your manager/management can't tell if you're being productive remotely, they sure as hell won't be able to figure it out if you're in the office either.