Summary

Twenty-one staffers from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) resigned, citing ethical concerns over dismantling public services and compromising sensitive data.

Formerly part of the U.S. Digital Service, they criticized Musk and Trump’s overhaul, which included layoffs and politically charged interviews.

Their letter warned that removing skilled technologists endangers essential services like Social Security and veterans’ benefits.

The resignations add to growing concerns over Musk’s aggressive federal cuts, amplified by his recent CPAC speech where he symbolically wielded a chainsaw against "bureaucracy."

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[–] 159 points 2 years ago (35 children)

I am always confused why they don't just sabotage the efforts? Like it would be so easy and they definitely aren't paying attention...

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  • [–] 60 points 2 years ago (11 children)

    Sabatoge can carry extremely harsh legal penalties, particularly if it has any type of lasting impact. Beyond that, just phoning it in and doing a bad job can slow things down but doesn't actually stop it. If you're then let go it's on their pace, it looks worse for you and it's less noticeable.

    A mass resignation can be the only thing some people can do. It sends a message, it gets noticed outside the organization, and it lets objective news reporting share your motivation, which would normally fall under opinion.
    It also leaves a big gap in the organization that isn't getting anything done.

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  • [–] 31 points 2 years ago (9 children)

    One aspect is that working in that kind of system destroys your mental health. Having to play games to hide the good things, trying to mitigate the bad things. It’s pressure.

    My state has been basically been doing Project 2025 for the past five years. I had a friend in an important position in a fascist overtaken state organization who held on for a long time, fighting the good fight - but it drains. She fought her fucking hardest, but a human being can only fight for so long.

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    [–] 107 points 2 years ago* (17 children)

    Relevant bit from the article, because some of y'all apparently comment before reading:

    The staffers who resigned were all originally employees of the United States Digital Service, a technology unit established during President Obama’s second term in 2014. The unit was renamed and reorganized in January via executive order by Trump into the Musk-headed DOGE.

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    [–] 77 points 2 years ago (9 children)

    Holy shit you guys are proper fucked. America went full retard

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    [–] 77 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    Those are the ones you want to stay. They have ethics.

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    [–] 54 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    And 21 loyalists (yes, america, you're heading to monarchy) will be hired to fill those spots and nobody is left to resist.

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  • [+] 31 points 2 years ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (8 children)
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    [–] 28 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    HOLY SHIT HELL YES!! Finally someone with some backbone god damn. Best news I've heard in a month!

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    [–] 27 points 2 years ago* (5 children)

    I was watching an interesting video by an ex-Tesla employee who basically confirmed what we all know - Musk is operationally incompetent and loves to showboat, firing people regardless of their value to the system, piling stress and additional work onto others. And does it even when there are process improvements that would yielded the same savings (or increase profits) and preserve jobs. That's literally his own mode of operation - work people harder with the threat of firings.

    And now he does the same BS with the federal government. People will die because of this.

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  • [–] 9 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    The move fast and break shit is something that worked in the computer sector, and as an elder millenial who grew up with computers since early childhood (my family's first computer was a C64 in the 80s. I was too young to actually use it) seeing how computers have changed and exploded in power was something to behold. A mid-high end computer in 1980 was stone age junk to a mid-high computer in 1990, and the same thing from 1990 to 2000, and 2000 to 2010.

    But you cannot apply the same shit to other sectors. For public services you can't expect to enter some place, fire everyone, and then think it'll be OK. It just isn't. They are services that are DESIGNED to have redundancy in order to properly work.

    Take 911 emergency lines for example. I had to call 911 a few times in my life. Do you know how long the average wait time for me was? Zero seconds. Someone picked up right away. Can you imagine what hell would happen if they decided to apply regular customer service rules to a fucking 911 line? If you had to wait 5 or 10 or 15 minutes to get to someone, PEOPLE ARE GOING TO DIE. Criminals are going to be getting away with their shit far more frequently than before. They will get bolder, too, since they know that police response times will be dramatically increased. (even in the 1970s. The stopwatch gang in Canada had a system where they would get in a bank, rob the place, and be out in less than 60 seconds. The speed at which they operated made it very difficult for people and police to get there on time since most people won't even have fully processed whatever the hell was going on in that amount of time).

    But that being said. I am genuinely amazed at just how successful Elon has been in enriching himself despite being a highly stupid, socially inept, and extremely inarticulate individual.

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  • [–] 23 points 2 years ago* (12 children)

    I would love to see posts like this end up on right leaning spaces like critical posts about left leaning issues end up on left leaning spaces.

    Trumps base has such a sycophant army that they just swarm spaces and post this stuff every minute of every day. But the opposite doesn't happen. Having even 100 people posting stuff like this across their space would do more than a 10 000 person protest ever could but it amazes me that 10 000 would take time off work, go stand in the rain for a week instead of shit posting effectively.

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  • [–] 21 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    This is based on the faulty liberal assumption that fascists are only fascists because they have yet to be shown all of the facts and logic.

    Let's just speed run the scenario where you post this article on a right space: you post the article, every trumper comes out and says the resignations were good because the staffers were woke, and then you scratch your head wondering why your appeal to facts and logic didn't work on fascists. At this point you might just start spamming right spaces and have all your posts go directly to spam.

    It's honestly kind of disturbing how you write off actual protests in favor of online activism, and I couldn't think of a more liberal take tbh. Anyone, at this stage of the game, who is taking the position of "less protests, more..." should be evaluated extremely critically - especially if your alternative is spamming r/conservative with liberal thinkpieces.

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    [–] 21 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    In their resignation letter, the former USDS staffers recounted how they were interviewed the day after Trump’s inauguration by figures wearing White House visitors’ badges who “demonstrated limited technical ability.”

    “Several of these interviewers refused to identify themselves, asked questions about political loyalty, attempted to pit colleagues against each other,” the workers, all of whom previously worked at tech companies such as Google and Amazon, recounted. “This process created significant security risks.”

    Forty USDS staffers were laid off following these interviews as part of Trump and Musk’s ongoing slashing of the federal government’s workforce. Around 65 remaining workers were then incorporated into DOGE, 21 of whom have now resigned from their positions.

    Well thats 44 assholes

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    [–] 17 points 2 years ago

    More Luigi pls

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  • [–] 16 points 2 years ago

    TBH it's interesting that there are always staffers available when the previous trump admin had staffers go very long times without a job as a result of their affiliations.

    Working with the fascists is a huge negative on your resume, kids.

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  • [–] 14 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    who did they submit their resignation? musk and trump can't lead so it's not them.

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