Shortly after President Donald Trump took office for the second time, he created the Department of Government Efficiency to eliminate all the “waste, bloat and insularity” allegedly plaguing federal agencies. Tech billionaire Elon Musk, who has already donated hundreds of millions to Trump and whose businesses have tens of billions of dollars’ worth of government contracts, took the quasi-agency’s helm and set about making the government more efficient, or so he said, even as he pursued his other goal: killing the so-called “woke mind virus.”
But Musk’s approach has been anything but efficient. In fact, it’s done little but sow chaos: Hours after firing federal employees, the administration — realizing it was eliminating critical positions — found itself scrambling to rehire them. And judges and government boards have ruled that some terminations must be reversed, though it’s not entirely clear whether the administration will comply.
Amid the disarray, High Country News set out to chart the first 60 days of this DOGE-induced disorder. We found the kind of bedlam that not only destabilizes the government and demolishes the services it’s supposed to provide, it’s also astonishingly cruel to the laid-off federal employees. If continued, it’s likely to do lasting damage to the nation’s public lands and programs and to the communities that depend on them.
January 20-31
Jan. 20: Trump signs an executive order freezing all new federal government hiring and revoking job offers for about 2,000 seasonal National Park Service workers.
Jan. 20: An executive order “establishes the Department of Government Efficiency to implement the President’s DOGE Agenda … to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity.”
Jan. 28: The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) sends its “Fork in the Road” email to about 2 million federal employees, pressuring them to resign by Feb. 6 and be paid until Sept. 30 or else face possible involuntary reductions in force.
Jan. 31: A second OPM email urges employees to resign and even “travel to your dream destination.”
Am I allowed to get a second job during the deferred resignation period?
Absolutely! We encourage you to find a job in the private sector as soon as you would like to do so. The way to greater American prosperity is encouraging people to move from lower productivity jobs in the public sector to higher productivity jobs in the private sector.
February 6-27
Feb. 6: Approximately 75,000 employees — including about 700 Park Service workers — opt for deferred resignation before Feb. 6, far fewer than Elon Musk anticipated.
Feb. 11: Trump signs an executive order “implementing” DOGE and putting Musk in charge of eliminating “waste, bloat and insularity” by slashing the federal workforce.
Feb. 13 & 14: The Trump administration terminates some 200,000 probationary employees, including new hires and people who were transferred or promoted in the last two years.
Feb. 14: The administration scrambles to rehire about 300 employees after realizing they oversaw the nation’s nuclear arsenal.
Feb 15:
Feb. 21: Interior Secretary Doug Burgum says the National Park Service will hire more than 5,000 seasonal workers, apparently reversing the Jan. 20 hiring freeze but not the Feb. 14 terminations. In mid-March, however, the USAJOBS website lists only 195 job openings across the department.
Feb. 26: Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought orders agencies to slash budgets by significantly reducing their workforces and real estate footprint.
Feb. 26: The Department of Interior imposes a $1 spending limit on all government purchase cards, making it difficult for officials to purchase even toilet paper for national parks, much less pay contractors to repair infrastructure.
Feb. 27: The administration fires about 800 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) employees, including at least 80 from the Boulder, Colorado, facility.
March 4-7
March 4: The U.S. General Services Administration, the government’s real estate manager, announces plans to dispose of about 440 “non-core assets” across the nation and cancel leases on more than 800 properties, shuttering dozens of federal offices around the West.
March 5: A federal board finds USDA’s mass termination of workers violated proper practices and orders it to reinstate some 6,000 of them, at least temporarily.
March 7: Three tribal nations file a lawsuit seeking to block mass firings at the chronically understaffed Bureau of Indian Education, the Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute in Albuquerque and Kansas’ Haskell University.
March 8-13
March 8: The Trump administration fires 1,000 NOAA workers in addition to the 1,300 or so that were already terminated or accepted the deferred resignation.
March 13: Western states sue the administration over its firing of more than 1,300 Education Department employees on March 11, saying it will harm low-income and disabled students in rural Western states that receive more federal education funding per student than the national average.
March 13: Oregon’s congressional delegation asks the administration to reverse its termination of about 20% of Bonneville Power Administration’s workforce.
March 13: A federal judge finds the administration acted improperly when DOGE and OMP fired thousands of probationary employees and orders it to reinstate about 200,000 of them — though only temporarily.
March 14-20
March 14: The Environmental Protection Agency submits its plan to eliminate its Office of Research and Development and fire more than 1,100 scientists.
March 17: A federal court votes 2-1 to reject the administration’s appeal seeking to block a judge’s order to reinstate fired probationary employees.
March 17: The Interior Department sends an email to staff offering early retirement or “voluntary separation incentive payment” to help it meet its goal of a 30% reduction in payroll.
March 17: Interior announces a plan to transfer “underused” federal land to states and localities for affordable housing development.
March 20: DOGE’s website claims its cuts have saved $115 billion in federal spending, though only about $12.6 billion has been verified. Musk and his minions have barely begun to wield their chainsaw of chaos, however; before the election, Musk promised to cut $2 trillion, and despite setbacks and court rulings against him, he’s showing no signs of stopping.
SOURCES: The White House, Education Data Initiative, Native American Rights Fund, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, General Services Administration, Government Executive, New York Times, DOGE, Office of Management and Budget, Musk Watch Doge Tracker, USAJOBS.
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This article appeared in the May 2025 print edition of the magazine with the headline “Sixty days of DOGE chaos.”
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