US Digital Service employees face layoffs as Elon Musk's DOGE team takes over

Elon Musk’s DOGE team is sending termination notices to dozens of staff at the United States Digital Service, Bloomberg reported citing two sources. The USDS is a group of federal information technology employees who's job, Elon Musk's DOGE is set to take over, it added.

USDS and DOGE are ‘Essentially the Same’?

Notably, the USDS and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency aka the United States DOGE Service, are technically the same entity, as per the report. It however noted that the USDS has been “used more as a vehicle” for Elon Musk to hire his own team.

USDS employees have been working in IT for the US government since the time of former US President Barack Obama. And for weeks, they have been in uncertainty about their jobs, the report said.

Terminations Letters Sent to Employees

Termination letters have been sent to over a dozen workers from February 14 from the US DOGE Service. The reason cited is US President Donald Trump’s January 20 executive order establishing DOGE, as per the report.

“Due to the restructuring and changes to USDS’s mission, USDS no longer has need for your services,” one letter said, according to a copy shared with Bloomberg.

The staff who remain have been told that they must come physically to office by April 15, the letter copy showed.

About the USDS

Before Elon Musk’s team came in, USDS offered IT and other help to federal agencies. In 2024, the Department of Education’s federal student aid portal’s revamp went haywire, and USDS team was the one that helped rebuild it, as per the report.

The report added that the White House and the Office of Management and Budget did not immediately answer emailed queries on the subject.

DOGE Spending Cuts Continue

Meanwhile, in a post on social media platform owned by Elon Musk, X (formerly known as Twitter), DOGE claimed that it has “cancelled” a host of items on which “US taxpayer dollars were going to be spent”.

These items were listed as following:

• $10 million for “Mozambique voluntary medical male circumcision”
• $9.7 million for UC Berkeley to develop “a cohort of Cambodian youth with enterprise driven skills”
• $2.3 million for “strengthening independent voices in Cambodia”
• $32 million to the Prague Civil Society Centre
• $40 million for “gender equality and women empowerment hub”
• $14 million for “improving public procurement” in Serbia
• $486 million to the “Consortium for Elections and Political Process Strengthening," including $22 million for “inclusive and participatory political process” in Moldova and $21 million for voter turnout in India
• $29 million to “strenghening political landscape in Bangladesh”
• $20M for “fiscal federalism” in Nepal
• $19 million for “biodiversity conversation” in Nepal
• $1.5 million for “voter confidence” in Liberia
• $14 million for “social cohesion” in Mali
• $2.5 million for “inclusive democracies in Southern Africa”
• $47 million for “improving learning outcomes in Asia”
• $2 million to develop “sustainable recycling models” to “increase socio-economic cohesion among marginalized communities of Kosovo Roma, Ashkali, and Egypt”

(With inputs from Bloomberg)