He spoke out at the packed meeting hosted Monday night by Democratic Rep. He has encouraged his employees in the past to sleep at work, Fortune reports. The town hall meeting, with clips above posted on Reddit, was attended by about people, according to the Loudoun Times-Mirror.
Those who spoke at the meeting said they were federal government workers, contractors, and retirees. DOGE is an outside advisory panel intended to advise the government on cost-cutting, but which has taken drastic measures to dismantle agencies such as USAID. Rather than simply advising, Musk appears to be the powerhouse behind a wholesale operation to push federal workers out of their jobs. A blanket buyout offer has been made in an email to federal employees if they agree to leave by a deadline this month.
Now thousands of federal employees look set to lose their jobs. The town hall speaker said he was made aware that Musk is aiming to cut the budget of his agency by half and slash the number of employees. Reports indicate that DOGE has recruited mostly men in their mid or early 20s to work with Musk to make radical changes to the government.
Meanwhile, Reuters has reported that DOGE employees have commandeered the headquarters of the Office of Personnel Management, shutting staff out of the computer system, and moving sofas onto the fifth floor.
In the past, it has only been accessible to those with a security pass or an escort. Musk was ordered to alter his building permit if he wanted employees to continue to sleep at work. According to two federal employees, DOGE representatives didn't provide their last names during recent interactions with workers. Last Friday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent gave the Department of Government Efficiency โ a unit of Trump advisers led by billionaire Elon Musk โ access to the federal payment system, giving DOGE a huge amount of oversight and power over how government money is spent.
