President Donald Trump promised to make the federal government more efficient — to do more with less. He even deputized billionaire Elon Musk to be the face of a new Department of Government Efficiency.
But critics say Musk's chainsaw approach to slashing government programs, contracts and jobs is having the opposite effect, sowing such confusion that it has hamstrung the bureaucracy's ability to serve the public and carry out key parts of Trump's own agenda.
"It's leading to paralysis, and nothing is getting done," said one Veterans Affairs official who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisal. The official described "absolute chaos" at the agency, with even Trump political appointees afraid to misstep and incur a backlash from either the White House or the public.
"The best employees are starting to look elsewhere," the official added. "I can't overemphasize that enough."
Trump and other White House officials say that the president is thrilled with Musk's work and wants him to be more aggressive. But there are signs of pushback within the political ranks of the administration, where Cabinet secretaries risk losing the civil servants best equipped to carry out critical government functions, and rank-and-file civil servants say exercises in navel-gazing have become a distraction from important work.
In short, running the government can be harder than it looks.
Email ultimatum fallout: Several veteran federal workers who spoke to NBC News on the condition of anonymity said that managers and employers at agencies spent hours on Monday determining how to deal with Musk's email directive — beyond just the time it took to assemble bulleted lists.
“Probably spent at least 30-60 minutes sharing thoughts about how to approach it with other federal employee friends from different agencies," said one of the workers who asked that her agency not be named. “Probably spent 60 minutes thinking about how it might be interpreted and also looked at the banned words to make sure I did not include those."
The employee was referring to words — such as "diversity" — that the administration is averse to. "I spent at least 30 minutes drafting [and] shared it with my manager via email before sending it,” she said.
Read more →
