Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, the incoming advisers to the Trump administration, proposed on Wednesday to ban federal employees from working remotely, citing the practice as a pandemic-era privilege.
In a Wall Street Journal online opinion post, the two tech industry leaders brought up the notion, claiming it would be a simple way to reduce the size of the government workforce.
If government employees were required to report to work five days a week, we would welcome the wave of voluntary terminations that would follow: The two men wrote that American taxpayers shouldn’t pay federal employees for the Covid-era privilege of staying at home if they don’t want to come up.
More than a million federal employees may be impacted. The Office of Management and Budget said in August that 46% of federal civilian employees, or about 1.1 million people, are qualified for some form of telework. According to the research, over 228,000 workers, or 10% of the workforce, hold remote jobs where they are not expected to work in person frequently.
The Biden administration, citing operational costs such as office space, the need to hire top personnel, and other considerations, ordered federal agencies to significantly increase meaningful in-person work in 2023, but it also allowed for some flexibility.
Although their positions are advisory and the department won’t become an official one until Congress enacts legislation establishing it, Musk and Ramaswamy are co-heads of what President-elect Donald Trump has dubbed a Department of Government Efficiency. The abbreviation DOGE refers to a cryptocurrency and online fad that Musk has been pushing for years.
Some of the first specific policy recommendations the two have pushed for in connection with their new positions are included in the opinion article.
Musk has been a more visible and significant player in Trump’s orbit in the run-up to his election and throughout the transition, frequently joining Trump in meetings with international leaders and lawmakers.
Since the Covid-19 pandemic started to end, Musk, the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, has implemented a rigorous policy regarding remote labor at his enterprises. In 2022, Musk declared a “turn-to-office” policy at SpaceX and Tesla, requiring workers to return to work for at least 40 hours per week. However, at the time, his directive was hindered by a shortage of resources and space, as CNBC reported.
There is much discussion about the future of remote work for office-based workers. While some businesses, like Amazon, have joined SpaceX and Tesla in calling employees back, other businesses are employing remote work as a recruiting and retention strategy that seems to be here to stay.
Musk and Ramaswamy have come under fire from some unionized federal employees who claim they are inexperienced.
In a statement regarding DOGE’s work in general, Randy Erwin, national president of the National Federation of Federal Employees, stated that it is evident that Musk and Ramaswamy just do not understand how the federal workforce is filled or operated.
According to Erwin, the two tech leaders disparage devoted federal workers and make ludicrous accusations about government waste. According to his union, 110,000 government employees are represented.
The two also recommended mass layoffs and moving government agencies outside of the Washington region as further measures to reduce federal employment in their opinion piece. Along with citing previous Supreme Court decisions that they claimed would give Trump broad discretion, they also listed a number of additional proposals for reducing federal spending and eliminating laws.
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