The second Trump administration has the federal workforce in its crosshairs. Spearheading the effort is Elon Musk (the richest man in the world) and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency (not actually a government department).

Donald Trump and Musk have taken a shotgun-blast approach: instituting a hiring freeze, shutting down whole agencies, telling workers to stop coming in, offering buyouts to two million workers, ordering remote workers back to the office in violation of union contracts, and mass-firing workers still in their probationary periods.

In a flurry of executive orders his first day in office, Trump opened the door to moving federal workers out of positions protected by civil-service rules and targeted remote work policies and diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.