21 legacy USDS staffers resign rather than work for DOGE
Elon Musk speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at the National Harbor in Oxon Hill, MD on February 20, 2025. Legacy employees at USDS released a resignation letter Tuesday outlining why they could no longer work alongside Musk's DOGE efforts. Valerie Plesch for The Washington Post via Getty Images
By
Natalie Alms
The employees cited the compromise of core government systems, significant security risks and their re-interview experiences in their rationale for leaving the team.
Twenty-one employees in the U.S. DOGE Service, formerly the U.S. Digital Service, quit their jobs Tuesday, writing in a public resignation letter that “we will not lend our expertise to carry out or legitimize DOGE’s actions.”
USDS started after the Healthcare.gov crash during the Obama administration to serve as a government tech SWAT team to help agencies with critical tech projects.
On the first day of Trump 2.0, President Donald Trump signed an executive order remaking USDS into the United States DOGE Service, with a focus on tech.
Days into the new administration, associates of Trump and billionaire Elon Musk — whose leadership of DOGE has been both confirmed and denied by the White House — started re-interviewing legacy USDS employees, as Nextgov/FCW reported at the time.
“Several of these interviewers refused to identify themselves, asked questions about political loyalty, attempted to pit colleagues against each other, and demonstrated limited technical ability,” the resignation letter reads. “This process created significant security risks.”
Earlier this month, dozens of staffers were dismissed, told that “USDS no longer has a need for your services.”
“DOGE has effectively become part of the USDS as a component of the White House, and any leftover career bureaucrats who don’t align with the President or DOGE are neither advised nor welcomed to be a part of this never-before-seen mission to make the government more efficient,” Harrison Fields, principal deputy press secretary, told Nextgov/FCW in a statement.
Katie Miller — who Trump said in December would join DOGE, though her current role is unclear — reposted the news on X, which was first reported by the Associated Press, saying that “these were full remote workers who hung Trans flags from their workplaces.”
The access that Musk and his associates have received to sensitive government information and tech systems has caused concern over privacy and cybersecurity risks, with some employees choosing to leave the government rather than grant that access.
The work of Musk and his associates has been wide-ranging, with the DOGE recently placed at the center of efforts to cut the federal workforce.
“DOGE’s actions — firing technical experts, mishandling sensitive data, and breaking critical systems — contradict their stated mission of ‘modernizing Federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity,’” the letter from the group that resigned Tuesday reads.
“We will not use our skills as technologists to compromise core government systems, jeopardize Americans’ sensitive data, or dismantle critical public services,” it continues.
At this point, it's unclear how many legacy USDS staffers remain, given recent firings and the delayed resignation program, a source familiar told Nextgov/FCW. Twenty-one left Tuesday and about 30 to 50 were dismissed earlier this month.
Within the organization, projects from what was formerly the U.S. Digital Service are still underway, although they will be stopped or impacted because of the loss of tech talent, said the source familiar.
The digital service has previously done work to improve the website of the Social Security Administration, deliver free COVID-19 tests and build the IRS’ free tax filing website.
“Without USDS, the government has no access to current tech industry skills and practices. It will lose the ability to respond to unanticipated needs, such as it did with covidtests.gov,” Mikey Dickerson, the first USDS administrator, told Nextgov/FCW in a statement.
“It will rely more on contractors and vendors, while losing the ability to communicate with them effectively or hold them accountable for results,” he continued. “This will drive up costs, waste, and fraud.”
Legacy USDS staff still don’t know who is in charge of DOGE, according to the source familiar. Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, told reporters Tuesday that “I’m not going to reveal the name of that individual from this podium” when pressed for the name of USDS administrator.
Miller, the White House and the Office of Management and Budget didn’t respond questions concerning who the administrator of the U.S. DOGE Service is or how many legacy USDS staffers are left.