[LINK] InfoAge: 'Tech workers quit DOGE to protest Musk's orders'

[Roger Clarke]

[ A cynic might argue that tech workers who know they're about to be 
flung out on the street are well-advised to make a show of 
publicly-spirited, honourable behaviour and resiogn before being sacked.

[ A moderate might express surprise and concern about not just the 
dramatic shift to the loony right in the political direction of US 
government agencies, but also the massive loss of corporate memory and 
basic competencies.

[ Thinking about the next steps for the "engineers, product managers, 
designers, data scientists, and IT and operations specialists who worked 
for the United States Digital Service (USDS)", some will be justified in 
being robustly self-confident in their ability to walk into decent and 
worthwhile jobs elsewhere.

[ But that may not be the experience for all of them, and there's a very 
limited safety-net such as notice-or-payment-in-lieu, transitional 
training, union-won protections, or professional society support mechanisms.


Tech workers quit DOGE to protest Musk's orders
Billionaire's team accused of 'breaking critical systems'.
Tom Williams
Feb 27 2025 11:59 AM
https://ia.acs.org.au/article/2025/tech-workers-quit-doge-to-protest-musk-s-orders.html

At least 21 technology workers at a United States government agency have 
quit en masse in the wake of their organisation being folded into Elon 
Musk’s DOGE, whose controversial actions they say do not align with the 
goals of public servants.

DOGE — short for the Department of Government Efficiency, and also a 
reference to a cryptocurrency memecoin — is an entity partly led by Musk 
which was created to "provide advice and guidance from outside of 
government”.

The group has been central to decisions to cut US government spending 
since Donald Trump returned as US president in January, with thousands 
of government employees fired or removed on buyouts, and Diversity, 
Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs rolled back.

The resigning tech workers were engineers, product managers, designers, 
data scientists, and IT and operations specialists who worked for the 
United States Digital Service (USDS), which was renamed DOGE under an 
executive order signed by Trump last month.

Some of the workers had reportedly left senior roles with companies such 
as Google and Amazon before joining the USDS.

They said they could no longer honour commitments they had made to the 
American people because DOGE was “firing technical experts, mishandling 
sensitive data, and breaking critical systems”.

“We will not use our skills as technologists to compromise core 
government systems, jeopardise Americans’ sensitive data, or dismantle 
critical public services,” the resigning workers wrote in a joint letter 
on Tuesday.

“We will not lend our expertise to carry out or legitimise DOGE’s actions.”

The workers said they had been “asked questions about political loyalty” 
and had seen dozens of colleagues “indiscriminately terminated by an 
anonymous email” in the time since Trump’s inauguration for a second 
non-consecutive term.

“Their removal endangers millions of Americans who rely on [government] 
services every day,” they wrote.

“The sudden loss of their technology expertise makes critical systems 
and Americans’ data less safe.”

Around two-thirds of USDS staffers reportedly remained at the agency and 
would take on new roles under DOGE.

Musk alleges ‘fake news’, cites death threats
Musk wrote on his social media platform X that the workers’ resignations 
were “fake news”.

However, he added “they would have been fired had they not resigned” and 
suggested they were Democrats “who refused to return to the office”.

DOGE spokesperson Katie Miller wrote on X, “These were full remote 
workers who hung Trans flags from their workplaces."

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt also dismissed the 
resignations in a statement to the Associated Press.

“Anyone who thinks protests, lawsuits, and lawfare will deter President 
Trump must have been sleeping under a rock for the past several years,” 
she said.

Musk attended Trump’s first cabinet meeting under his new administration 
on Wednesday, where he told cabinet members he had received death 
threats over DOGE’s work.

DOGE’s official website was hacked earlier this month, only days after 
it was launched.

Musk told the cabinet meeting that DOGE would make mistakes, and “won’t 
be perfect”.

“But when we make mistakes, we’ll fix it very quickly,” he said.

Elon Musk responded to some questions from journalists during Donald 
Trump's cabinet meeting on Wednesday. Image: The White House / YouTube

Concerns over DOGE’s alleged use of AI

DOGE has faced criticism for reportedly using technologies such as 
artificial intelligence to inform its decisions and the advice it 
provides to the US government.

NBC News reported DOGE was expected to use an AI Large Language Model 
(LLM) to assess responses from federal workers who were sent emails from 
the group demanding they detail the work they completed in the past 
week, or face being fired.

Musk told Wednesday’s cabinet meeting that Trump had told him to “be 
more aggressive” in his work at DOGE before those emails were sent out.

He said workers whose jobs were no longer needed, or were not being done 
well, faced being sacked.

Wired also reported DOGE appeared to be editing a piece of software 
called AutoRIF (Automated Reduction in Force), which had been designed 
by the US Defense Department and “could assist in mass firings of 
federal workers”.

'Important ethical questions' raised
Dr Emmanuelle Walkowiak, a senior research fellow at RMIT University who 
studies technology and the future of work, said DOGE’s actions had 
raised “important ethical questions” around the deployment of AI and 
attacks on diversity and inclusion.

The use of AI to analyse personal data could potentially infringe on 
individuals’ privacy rights and could “amplify existing biases and 
reinforce discriminatory practices”, she told Information Age.

“When it comes to tech workers in the US, we need to keep in mind that 
work is not just about producing, it’s not just about productivity.

“It’s also about responsibility — the meaningfulness of your work, the 
agency and the autonomy people have to complete their work and their 
mission.

“What we observe right now … is a kind of institutionalisation of 
bullying practices.”

While DOGE had presented AI as a tool to increase productivity, it could 
also be used to “reduce the autonomy and agency of workers, and erode 
trust in the workplace”, she said.

“The signal sent [by the resigning workers] is really clear — what these 
people are trying to do is to engage their responsibility in the design 
of AI and AI deployment in the US.”


-- 
Roger Clarke                            mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au
T: +61 2 6288 6916   http://www.xamax.com.au  http://www.rogerclarke.com

Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd      78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA 

Visiting Professorial Fellow                          UNSW Law & Justice
Visiting Professor in Computer Science    Australian National University