DOGE’s plans to trim government headcount include RTO and early retirements

Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk detailed their plans to lead the DOGE commission.

The leaders of President-elect Donald Trump’s government efficiency commission provided more details on how they plan to reduce head count across government agencies.

In an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal Wednesday, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, a former GOP presidential candidate, laid out their vision for a new Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.

Musk and Ramaswamy said DOGE, working with the Office of Management and Budget and other agencies, would advise Trump on rescinding regulations and cutting administrative costs, which would result in layoffs across federal agencies.

“DOGE intends to work with embedded appointees in agencies to identify the minimum number of employees required at an agency for it to perform its constitutionally permissible and statutorily mandated functions,” Musk and Ramaswamy wrote, adding that the number of employees cut should be proportionate to the number of federal regulations that Trump rescinds.

“Employees whose positions are eliminated deserve to be treated with respect, and DOGE’s goal is to help support their transition into the private sector,” they wrote. “The president can use existing laws to give them incentives for early retirement and to make voluntary severance payments to facilitate a graceful exit.”

The two also floated the idea of requiring federal employees to come into the office five days a week, which they argued could lead to “a wave of voluntary terminations that we welcome: If federal employees don’t want to show up, American taxpayers shouldn’t pay them for the Covid-era privilege of staying home.”

Musk suggested at a town hall in October that he would consider giving laid-off workers “very long severances” that could amount to two years’ pay, saying at the time that “the point is not to be cruel or to have people not be able to pay their mortgage or anything.”

Data from the Treasury Department showed that the US spent $6.75 trillion in fiscal year 2024, with the Department of Health and Human Services, the Social Security Administration, and the Department of Defense topping the spending lists. The federal government is the largest employer in the US, with a workforce of over 2 million Americans, so the DOGE commission’s suggestions could have wide-ranging implications.

DOGE would target “$500 billion plus in annual federal expenditures that are unauthorized by Congress,” Musk and Ramaswamy wrote, which they said could include nearly $300 million to “progressive groups like Planned Parenthood.”

The commission would not have the power to cut spending independently. Changes to many programs, including mandatory ones such as Social Security and Medicare, would have to be made through legislation with congressional approval.