Market Data 
- 21 employees from the agency rebranded the US DOGE Service resigned on Tuesday.
- The signatories said in a joint letter that they refuse to “jeopardize Americans’ sensitive data.”
- Elon Musk and a spokeswoman for the White House DOGE Office responded to the resignations on X.
Twenty-one civil service employees resigned from the agency that was rebranded the United States DOGE Service on Tuesday, protesting the White House DOGE office’s actions.
“We will not use our skills as technologists to compromise core government systems, jeopardize Americans’ sensitive data, or dismantle critical public services,” the employees wrote in their public resignation letter directed to White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. “We will not lend our expertise to carry out or legitimize DOGE’s actions.”
The letter, dated February 25, was taken down on Tuesday afternoon without an explanation, though the resignations were not publicly rescinded.
On Inauguration Day, President Donald Trump formally turned the Obama-era United States Digital Services into the White House DOGE office. Trump previously appointed Elon Musk to co-lead the effort, but a top White House official recently declared in a legal filing that Musk is not leading DOGE and is instead a senior advisor to Trump.
In their letter, the now-former employees had said that DOGE representatives “began integrating us into their efforts,” which the signatories believe were inconsistent with their goals as civil servants.
Jonathan Kamens, a former USDS engineer who was fired on February 14, told BI that he thinks more federal employees are beginning to push back against the White House DOGE office’s most recent efforts.
“We are seeing more resistance, we are seeing more overt resistance,” he said the day before the group resignation.
Musk took notice of the employees’ collective actions and responded on X, writing, “These were Dem political holdovers who refused to return to the office. They would have been fired had they not resigned.”
Katie Miller, a spokesperson for the White House DOGE office, also took to X to respond: “These were full remote workers who hung Trans flags from their workplaces.”
The group resignation comes one day after federal employees faced a deadline to list their productivity from the past week. Agencies offered conflicting guidelines on whether or how to respond to the request, and some employees told BI that the experience bred confusion and stress.
Representatives for Trump, Musk, and the White House DOGE office did not respond to BI’s request for comment.
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