The president of the United States, Donald Trump, made a rare appearance with Elon Musk, his most powerful advisor, in the Oval office on Tuesday before signing an executive order to continue reducing federal labor.
Associated Press reviewed an informative sheet of the White House in the order, which is intended to advance in Musk's work by reducing spending with its government efficiency department.
Musk said there are some good people in the federal bureaucracy, but that they need to be responsible and called him a fourth “not chosen” branch.
“People voted for an important government reform and that is what people are going to get,” he said. “That's what democracy is about.”
The White House prohibited an AP reporter from the Oval Office event due to the media organization guidelines Do not follow Trump's order that changes the name of the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, Associated Press said in a statement.
It was the first time that Musk took questions from journalists since he joined the Trump administration as a special government employee with an expanding influence on federal agencies. He is also the richest person in the world and the owner of X, the social networks platform previously known as Twitter.
Despite the concerns that he is accumulating an inexplicable power with little transparency, Musk described himself as an open book. He joked that scrutiny was like a “daily proctology exam.”
The White House information sheet said that “agencies will undertake plans for large -scale reductions in force and determine which agency components (or agencies) can be eliminated or combined because their functions are not required by law.”
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He also said that the agencies should not “hire no more than one employee for every four employees who move away from the federal service.” There are exception plans when it comes to immigration, application of law and public safety.
Trump and Musk are pressing federal workers to resign in exchange for financial incentives, although their plan is currently waiting while a judge reviews their legality. The deferred renunciation program, commonly described as a purchase, would allow employees to quit smoking and are still paid until September 30. Administration officials said that more than 65,000 workers have received the offer.
Also on Tuesday, a Federal Court of Appeals confirmed a court order that demanded that the Government continue to deliver federal funds that frozen under a widely criticized memorandum of the Trump administration.
Separately, a federal judge left on Tuesday a prohibition that prevents the Musk department from accessing the records of the United States Department of the United States that contain confidential personal data for millions of Americans.
Hundreds of people gathered for a demonstration on Tuesday on the other side of Capitol Street in the United States in support of federal workers.
Janet Connelly, a graphic designer of the Department of Energy, said she is fed up with emails from the Personnel Management Office encouraging people to take the Deferred Resignation Program.
She tried to use her spam configuration to filter the emails, but it was in vain. Connelly said he has no plans to accept the offer.
“From the first moment, I didn't trust him,” he said.
Connelly said he thinks his work is trying to do an important service for the American public.
“It's too easy to vilipendiar ourselves,” he said.
Others have said that fear and uncertainty have swept the federal workforce.
“They are worried about their jobs. They are concerned about their families. They are also concerned about their work and the communities they are served, “said Helen Bottcher, former employee of the Environmental Protection Agency and current union leader in Seattle.
Bottcher participated in a press conference organized by Senator Patty Murray, Washington Democrat.
Murray said workers “deserve better than being threatened, intimidated and pushed by Elon Musk and Donald Trump.” He also said that “we really need these people to stay in their work or things will begin to break.”
A government lawyer, who spoke with Associated Press about the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, said it was a scary moment to be a federal worker.
She said people are worried that their phones and computers are being monitored. She is a single mother with a little daughter, and her father urges her to take a safer job in the private sector.
But it is skeptical about the Deferred Resignation Program, emphasizing that accepting the offer means that workers cannot sue if they are not paid what is promised.
The idea, he said, was crazy.
AP writers Martha Bellisle in Seattle, Rebecca Santana, Michelle L. Price and Brian Witte in Annapolis, Maryland, contributed to this report.
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