'If federal employees don't want to show up, American taxpayers shouldn't pay them for the COVID-era privilege of staying home'
Many people witnessed a bare-midriffed Elon Musk gambolling on Donald Trump’s election campaign stages – but it appears that the capering by the world’s richest man may well have put him in charge of cost cutting at the US federal government – and a number of employees are not going to be happy.
The Tesla CEO and American entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy have been tasked by the President-elect to lead the newly established Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), and are spearheading what they consider to be a bold effort to bring federal employees back to the office five days a week.
This policy is central to their broader strategy to streamline government operations, cut costs, and reduce bureaucracy.
“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 declared in an editorial for the Wall Street Journal.
The requirement to return to full-time in-office work is expected to lead to significant workforce reductions, as those unwilling to comply may choose to leave their positions.
Return to pre-pandemic norms
The five-day in-office mandate is part of a larger initiative to restore what the duo consider to be traditional work expectations in federal agencies. Musk and Ramaswamy argue that remote work has contributed to inefficiencies and a lack of accountability in government.
By requiring employees to work on-site, they hope to foster greater oversight and collaboration, while simultaneously addressing what they describe as "administrative overgrowth" in federal operations, according to the editorial.
Musk is no stranger to demanding staff return to the office to work: "Everyone at Tesla is required to spend a minimum of 40 hours in the office per week", he said in a tweet to employees. "If you don't show up, we will assume you have resigned".
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Last year he gave Twitter employees a similar ultimatum – return to the office full time or “resignation accepted.”
Musk and Ramaswamy will hope to leverage existing statutes, which allow the president to establish rules governing the civil service. These rules, according to the pair in the Wall Street Journal column, can mandate in-office attendance without targeting specific employees, effectively bypassing civil-service protections that make firing federal workers challenging.
Workforce reductions with office return
The mandatory return to offices is expected to result in widespread voluntary resignations, something that Musk and Ramaswamy say they welcome.
"Requiring federal employees to come to the office five days a week would result in a wave of voluntary terminations that we welcome," they stated, emphasizing that a leaner federal workforce aligns with their mission to shrink the government.
DOGE says it aims to use these reductions to streamline federal agencies, ensuring they operate with only the minimum staff necessary to fulfill their constitutional and statutory mandates.
Employees who leave will be offered severance packages or incentives for early retirement to ensure a smooth transition out of government roles, say the pair in the WSJ column.
Broader effort to cut bureaucracy
The five-day work requirement is just one means to DOGE’s larger ends of reducing regulations and curbing government inefficiency. By shrinking the workforce, the agency anticipates fewer new regulations and improved oversight of existing ones.
Musk and Ramaswamy argue that an inflated federal workforce not only enforces unnecessary rules but perpetuates a cycle of overregulation.
Their efforts are backed by recent Republican-dominated Supreme Court rulings that limit federal agencies' authority to impose regulations without explicit congressional approval. These decisions, they say in the WSJ editorial, provide a legal foundation for scaling back both regulations and the workforce responsible for enforcing them.
New era for federal work culture
This policy marks a decisive shift away from the remote work practices that became widespread during the pandemic. Musk and Ramaswamy see it as a necessary step to rein in what they call an "entrenched and unaccountable bureaucracy."
“Our nation was founded on the idea that the people we elect run the government,” they wrote. “Today, unelected civil servants make most of the decisions, often from the comfort of their homes. That isn’t how government should function.”
The mandatory five-day workweek is just one piece of DOGE’s broader plan to restructure federal agencies, eliminate waste, and restore what Musk and Ramaswamy call the Founders’ vision for government. Whether it will achieve these goals remains to be seen, but its leaders are confident that it will lead to a leaner, more efficient federal workforce.