Thousands Dismissed Last Month Face Reinstatement...
DOGE's Plans Complicated
Musk Continues Workforce Cuts...
Visits U.S. Intelligence Agencies to Discuss Staff Reductions
A U.S. federal court has ordered the reinstatement of federal probationary employees who were mass-dismissed by the Donald Trump administration last month.
On the 13th (local time), according to the Associated Press (AP) and The Washington Post (WP), U.S. District Judge William Alsup of the San Francisco Federal Court in California ordered the reinstatement of thousands of probationary federal employees who were dismissed by the Trump administration from various federal agencies last month.
Judge Alsup stated, "The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) does not have the authority to order employee dismissals to each government department," adding, "It is a sad thing if the government fires good employees under the pretense of performance-based decisions, knowing full well that it is a lie."
This lawsuit was filed by the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), a public employee union, in opposition to the mass dismissal of probationary federal employees. Many probationary employees have less than one year of service, but some have worked for the federal government for a long time. Judge Alsup had previously issued a preliminary injunction in favor of these employees on the 27th of last month. He is a federal judge appointed by former Democratic President Bill Clinton.
Earlier, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, cited low job performance as the reason for the dismissals. However, the AFGE union argued that most probationary employees were dismissed not due to performance but because they were hired by the previous administration.
Despite this federal court ruling, CEO Musk continues efforts to reduce government workforce. According to The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), Musk secretly visited the National Security Agency (NSA) the day before the deadline for each federal agency to submit workforce reduction and organizational restructuring plans, focusing on personnel cuts and operational issues within federal intelligence agencies.
The NSA stated that it had a positive dialogue with CEO Musk, saying, "Meetings with key advisors from the Trump administration show that we are all moving in the same direction."
WSJ noted that Musk's visit to the NSA, one of the most famous and secretive intelligence agencies in the U.S., just one day before the deadline for agencies to submit their workforce reduction plans, "demonstrates the tremendous power he wields by being able to freely visit such an agency."
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