- Elon Musk and his army of young men are taking over federal offices: bringing beds into the buildings, staking out territory with sticky notes, and questioning workers on their usefulness. Government staffers describe an environment of “fear” and “madness,” especially after receiving a cryptic email.
President Donald Trump tapped billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk to make the government run more efficiently. Now Musk and his followers are dismantling offices across Washington.
As the newly minted leader of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Musk has been completely upending operations across the government. According to a new report, a cryptic email was sent to millions of staffers, Musk claimed a conference room using a “DOGE” sticky note, and brought beds into buildings to enable longer working hours. As more operations are shut down—including USAID, where all staffers were just put on leave—workers are fearful of what lies around the bend.
Musk’s sweeping changes and workplace intrusions are all a part of his “demon mode” persona, as White House reporter Jonathan Swan discussed in the most recent episode of the New York Times’ podcast The Daily. The X billionaire’s leadership style is marked by staying up all night, sleeping on the floors of his company buildings—including those of Tesla, SpaceX, and now DOGE—setting fast deadlines, and trimming staff numbers.
Trump seems to have rewarded Musk’s efforts: Swan said the tech billionaire is now operating out of opulent secretary of war suites in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.
“He is marked by incredible risk-taking—extreme risk-taking—and a willingness to, if he or his employees consider regulations or laws to be ‘dumb,’ defy those regulations,” Swan said in the podcast episode.
The White House did not immediately respond to Fortune‘s request for comment on the report.
A cryptic email, “DOGE” sticky notes, and intrusions from the Musk army
Musk didn’t take long to bring down the hammer with DOGE, echoing moves in his past leadership roles. Last week, two million U.S. government workers received an email from the Office of Personnel Management detailing options for them to resign. The message was titled “a fork in the road”—the same subject line and offer of resignation Musk sent out to Twitter staffers when he took over the media platform in 2022. The offer, which Musk acknowledged in an X post, said that employees have the option to step down and receive payment through the end of September.
Other workers had no choice in the matter. Virtually all USAID employees were laid off, after thousands had already been let go due to a foreign aid freeze. Workers in DEI-related roles were put on paid leave, eventually to be laid off. Musk also targeted the Treasury Department and its payment system for the government, which manages $6 trillion in spending each year on Social Security, Medicare, federal salaries, and more. Swan said that Musk’s followers stormed the Treasury, and when a senior staffer tried to stop the young men from accessing the highly sensitive system, he was threatened with administrative leave. The staffer chose to retire soon after, Swan said.
Read more from Fortune
There have also been physical intrusions at the agencies. Workers at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building showed up to their office to find a sticky note saying “DOGE” on a door to a suite once used by senior technologists. Inside the room, black backpacks were strewn about, and unknown men in their twenties sporting T-shirts and blazers were hastily working away and wandering the halls, Swan said.
These mysterious young newcomers are Musk’s army of devotees. They worked with him at Tesla and SpaceX and are now installed in critical functions of the government. Federal employees were already on edge, but then Musk’s men started probing people across government agencies. They questioned staffers on what job they’re doing and examples of work they’ve done.
Federal workers on edge
Some agencies have been bracing for the blow in the weeks leading up to the new administration. Before Trump took office for the second time, federal workers felt downtrodden by the President-elect’s idea to slash civil service employees.
“Morale is about as low as it’s ever been,” Michael Bilik, executive vice president of the National Labor Relations Board Union, told the Guardian. “I’m hearing questions, especially from new employees, like: ‘Should I be looking for another job?’ ‘Am I going to be the first to go since I was the last one hired?’”
There’s so much uncertainty, and alongside Musk’s leadership methods, federal employees describe a workplace environment of “fear” and insanity.
“It’s been madness,” an employee at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) told the Guardian, adding that they wanted to remain anonymous out of fear of retaliation. And referencing the buyout emails and others sent from Musk: “They seem clearly designed to disturb and scare people, among all of the things they actually say, which are clear threats.”
