It is a discontent movement that comes from the base and which intensifies in particular through social networks. In the corridors of the American Senate, in Washington, a few dozen demonstrators did door on Wednesday to protest against the massive cups in the federal government carried out under the impetus of Elon Musk. Similar demonstrations take place everywhere in the American capital and its surroundings, where hundreds of thousands of federal agents work. They are part of an increasing protest movement against the reductions of staff and expenses decided by the main lieutenant of President Donald Trump.
The White House asked all the federal agencies on Wednesday to prepare for massive layoffs of civil servants by “eliminating the positions that are not necessary”. The director of the Management and Budget Office (OMB) Russell Vought asked the federal agencies to set up a starting window, not to replace the scheduled departures and to separate from the employees considered to be “insufficiently efficient”. The US government has launched a first starting plan, driven by the Multimillionaire Elon Musk, offering federal employees to leave their jobs in exchange for maintaining their salary over more than six months. More than 75,000 employees accepted it, according to the White House, out of a total of around two million.
Resignations and justice complaints
Some manifest their anger by resigning. About twenty officials integrated into the workforce managed by Elon Musk presented their collective resignation Tuesday in a letter addressed to the White House. Their departure represents a reduction of almost a third of the Doge staff. The now famous commission for government efficiency, responsible for drastically reducing administration expenses, is supervised by the boss of Tesla, Space X and the social network X, but the latter does not officially direct it, according to a White House update on February 18.
The Pentagon, the FBI and other agencies asked civil servants not to respond immediately to Elon Musk’s order to justify by email of their activity. If it is too early to know the repercussions of these cuts in the functioning of the United States government, they in any case plunged thousands of civil servants in uncertainty. Dozens of justice complaints have been filed against the threats or requirements of Elon Musk, with mixed results. AFGE, the main union of federal civil servants, promised to challenge the dismissals before the courts, which it deems illegal. Furthermore, according to a survey Washington Post-Ipsos unveiled in February, a majority of Americans say they are opposed to the measures taken by Donald Trump aimed at dismissing a large number of federal employees.
The discontent of certain Republicans
The discomfort wins to the ranks of Donald Trump’s Republican Party, who controls both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Republican senator John Curtis urged Elon Musk to show “compassion”. For her part, the republican senator Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), a moderate, described “absurd” the request made by Elon Musk to civil servants In a post published on X on February 23. “If Elon Musk really wants to understand what federal officials have accomplished as work during last week, he should get to know each ministry and agency and inquire about the jobs he tries to delete,” she wrote. “Our civil servants deserve to be treated with dignity and respect for the work they do without anyone advertising them. It is not the absurd email sent this weekend to justify their existence which is the cause,” she deplored.
The Republican senator Thom Tillis (North Carolina) also criticized the Elon Musk directive, saying that he supported the decision of the leaders of certain agencies to ignore orders. “If I were a confirmed member of the administration and someone else asked me about my staff, that would be a problem for me,” said Thom Tillis At Washington Post.
Elon Musk, “Modest IT technician”
After spending a quarter of a billion dollars to help Donald Trump’s election in November 2024, Elon Musk became an important member of the transition period between the Biden administration and that of Trump, participating in meetings without being invited and driving in order to place relatives in posts in the office, according to half a dozen sources interviewed by Reuters.
The multimillionaire is still at the forefront of power. Elon Musk thus participated in the first ministerial council of the second term of Donald Trump on Wednesday. He was invited as a chief of the Doge. The American president has staged his proximity to the boss of Tesla, at a time when the American press reports tightness between the richest man in the world and certain ministers. Dressed in black as usual and wearing a cap, Elon Musk was invited to express himself in front of the journalists present and the entire government. He presented himself as a “modest IT technician”. The ministers are “enchanted” of Elon Musk’s action, also assured Donald Trump at this meeting.
Frictions at the White House?
Behind the scenes, According to Reuters,, Conflicts within the White House and the Trump administration has been taking place for several weeks. Thus, according to this news agency, during the first weeks of the new Trump administration, some officials of the White House expressed concerns about the tactics of the Doge. The chief of staff Susie Wiles would have taken Elon Musk aside in order to ask her to inform her of her plans, instead of surprising her team with major decisions, according to two separate sources aware of the conversation that spoke under the cover of anonymity to Reuters.
After this conversation, Elon Musk would have started to hold Susie Wiles daily informed of DOGE’s activities, said one of the two sources. The White House thought it had obtained the Elon Musk agreement so that he asked for the approval of the secretaries of the firm before using the government’s human resources agency, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), for the sending of emails to federal officials, these two sources told. But this plan seems to have quickly failed after Donald Trump urged Elon Musk on Saturday to “be more aggressive” in his offensive against civil servants.
Employees and some officials of the Trump administration, as well as the White House, would have been taken again off guard by Elon Musk’s initiative to ask civil servants to justify their activity, says Reuters. Solicited by this media, the spokesperson for the White House, Karoline Leavitt, said in a statement that the sources of Reuters were “erroneous” and that the “White House had not been caught up.