Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy—two billionaire entrepreneurs and newly appointed Trump administration advisors—are making lofty promises. This week, the pair informed Congress that through their advisory board, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), they intend to cut $2 trillion in “government waste.”
The catch? The proposed savings rely on eliminating federal employees’ ability to work remotely.
Leading the charge in support of DOGE is Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), whose office released a 60-page report criticizing the widespread use of remote work in government roles.
“Growing up on a farm, I know what working from home really means. But in Washington, working from home apparently means having a field day,” Ernst wrote. “If bureaucrats want to be out of the office so badly, we can make that wish come true by putting them out to pasture for good.”
Ernst, who chairs the Senate’s DOGE caucus, claimed in the report that only 6% of federal employees work full-time, in-person. The remaining 94% are the focus of Musk and Ramaswamy’s proposal.
“If you exclude security guards & maintenance personnel, the number of government workers who show up in person and do 40 hours of work a week is closer to 1%! Almost no one,” Musk wrote on X, linking to a New York Post summary of Ernst’s findings.
“Literally thousands of empty buildings, not just in America, but around the world, paid for with your tax dollars!” Musk added in a follow-up post.
Ernst is backing a DOGE-related bill titled the REMOTE Act, which would authorize the use of monitoring software to track federal employees’ computer activity. According to the Daily Mail, the software would measure “network traffic,” record login frequency, track time spent online, and collect data on activity generated by remote workers.
A Familiar Pattern of Tracking
Employee monitoring software is not new, particularly among executives uneasy about managing remote workforces. In 2022, the New York Times reported that companies like J.P. Morgan, Barclays Bank, and UnitedHealth Group were already tracking employee productivity—monitoring email response times and even individual keystrokes.
Musk himself has long been a vocal opponent of remote and flexible work arrangements. As CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, as well as the owner of X (formerly Twitter), he has implemented strict return-to-office (RTO) policies.
In 2022, Musk sent Tesla employees an email demanding they return to the office for 40 hours per week or face termination, saying, “We will assume you have resigned.” After acquiring Twitter (X) in October 2022, Musk threatened layoffs for employees who refused to come into the office, accusing remote workers of merely “pretending” to work.
Closed-Door Meetings and RTO Push
On Thursday, Musk and Ramaswamy met behind closed doors with Republican lawmakers, including senators and members of Congress, in an effort to gain support for their plan, according to ABC News.
The two businessmen—appointed by President-elect Donald Trump to lead the external Department of Government Efficiency—argue that curbing remote work and reducing the federal workforce are essential for cutting costs.
In a November op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, Musk and Ramaswamy outlined their vision, describing “mass head-count reductions across the federal bureaucracy” as the primary strategy for achieving trillions in savings.
“Requiring federal employees to come to the office five days a week would result in a wave of voluntary terminations that we welcome,” they wrote. “If federal employees don’t want to show up, American taxpayers shouldn’t pay them for the COVID-era privilege of staying home.”
Ramaswamy has gone further, suggesting that 75% of federal employees could be fired.
Musk echoed these sentiments on Thursday, telling lawmakers that remote federal employees are contributing to wasteful spending in the federal budget—a position that resonates with many in Congress.
