Elon Musk, Ramaswamy push to end remote work for federal employees in DOGE plan: 'If they don't show up, taxpayers shouldn't pay'

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have teamed up to unveil their ambitious vision for the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in a co-authored op-ed for The Wall Street Journal. The duo, both billionaires, have been appointed by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump to spearhead the department and one of the first things they are doing is ending work from home.

In the joint op-ed, Musk and Ramaswamy detailed their vision for overhauling federal operations as leaders of the newly created Department.

Tasked by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, they aim to cut costs and streamline bureaucracy by tackling what they describe as inefficiencies in the civil service.

¡°Requiring federal employees to come to the office five days a week would result in a wave of voluntary terminations that we welcome,¡± the duo argued.

They criticised the widespread remote work culture among federal employees, with around 228,000 workers¡ªor 10% of the civilian workforce¡ªfully remote as of August 2024.

¡°If federal employees don¡¯t want to show up, American taxpayers shouldn¡¯t pay them for the Covid-era privilege of staying home,¡± they wrote.

Musk, the visionary behind SpaceX and Tesla, and Ramaswamy, founder of Roivant Sciences, claimed that civil service protections have enabled an inefficient, ¡°antidemocratic¡± system that unfairly burdens taxpayers.

Their proposed reforms for DOGE will focus on ¡°regulatory rescissions, administrative reductions, and cost savings.¡±

They also pledged to work closely with the Trump transition team to assemble a lean, skilled group of small-government advocates, who will collaborate with the White House Office of Management and Budget to implement these sweeping changes.

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