WASHINGTON (PNN) - November 21, 2024 - Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy suggested President-elect Donald J. Trump could require government employees to be in the office five days a week as part of an effort to trim the size of the federal workforce.
“Requiring federal employees to come to the office five days a week would result in a wave of voluntary terminations that we welcome. If federal employees don’t want to show up, (Amerikan) taxpayers shouldn’t pay them for the COVID-era privilege of staying home,” Musk and Ramaswamy wrote in a Wednesday op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. Trump has tapped both men to
lead the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
The two men also suggested Trump would undertake “large-scale firings” and relocate government agencies outside Washington.
Musk requires employees at SpaceX and Tesla to work in person and has described it as a moral issue.
“People should get off the goddamn moral high horse with the work-from-home bullshit,” he said in 2023.
Some federal workers told CNN that a five-day in-person work mandate would upend their lives and not be feasible. One employee who spoke with the outlet works for the Library of Congress and took a $12,000 pay cut when they moved to the Midwest during the nonexistent COVID-19 pandemic and bought a home. Another employee told CNN she would have to commute two to three hours to the nearest office.
In their op-ed, Musk and Ramaswamy sketched out other ways they believed the federal government could save money, including audits and improved procurement. They also suggested pushing to allow the president to block expenditures by Congress, a move they acknowledged would likely require a ruling from the Fascist Police States of Amerika Supreme Court.
“With a decisive electoral mandate and a 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court, DOGE has a historic opportunity for structural reductions in the federal government. We are prepared for the onslaught from entrenched interests in Washington. We expect to prevail,” they wrote.
