By Video, Email, and Group Calls, Musk Aides Fire Thousands

OPM defends firing probationary employees
By Bob Cronin,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 13, 2025 7:30 PM CST
By Video, Email, and Group Calls, Musk Aides Fire Thousands
Elon Musk walks out of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House campus on Thursday.   (Photo/Alex Brandon)

The Trump administration's campaign to remove government workers intensified on Thursday, with thousands fired and more told they could be next. Agencies were ordered by the Office of Personnel Management to dismiss almost all probationary employees who don't yet have civil service protection; the government hired about 200,000 people in the past two years, per the Washington Post. And Elon Musk, charged with the job by President Trump, suggested more mass firings are ahead. "I think we do need to delete entire agencies as opposed to leave a lot of them behind," Musk said, per the AP. "If we don't remove the roots of the weed, then it's easy for the weed to grow back."

  • The process: Thousands of workers learned of their dismissals through prerecorded videos, in emails, and on group calls. Some of them were told to leave their building within 30 minutes, and others were told their formal notification would be delivered in an email that didn't arrive. The Small Business Administration provided laid-off employees wanting to appeal the dismissal with the phone number of a paralegal. The number actually was an automated line for an apartment building.
  • Probationary force: The firings of employees on probation began earlier in the week, reaching agencies including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Department of Education. The OPM fired its own probationary staff, with an instruction to leave quickly, per Government Executive. Documents show that probationary employees, dozens of whom said they had never received negative feedback about their work, received emails citing their work and saying they "have not demonstrated that your further employment at the Agency would be in the public interest," per the Post. Dozens of the workers said they'd never received negative feedback about their performance.
  • The targeting: The head of American Federation of Government Employees said the Trump administration abused the workers' probation status "to conduct a politically driven mass firing spree, targeting employees not because of performance, but because they were hired before Trump took office." An OPM spokesperson said, "The probationary period is a continuation of the job application process, not an entitlement for permanent employment."

  • The strategy: A senior fellow at the Brookings Institution said one problem with firing people on probation is that they're the youngest segment of the workforce. "Baby Boomers are retiring right and left, so actually the people you want to keep are probably most of the people who are right now on probation," said Elaine Kamarck, saying that removes those skills.
  • The people: An Education Department employee on probation had just moved to Washington last summer for the job helping disabled people, a move that used up all of her savings, per the Post. The email saying she was out that day came while she was working at home because of the snow. Her supervisor quickly called, saying he'd just been fired by email, too. "Do I need to finish work?" she asked him.
(More Trump administration stories.)

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