The US Defense Department, also known as the Pentagon, said Friday that it will slash its civilian workforce by at least 5% beginning next week, Deutsche Welle (DW) reported.
"We anticipate reducing the Department's civilian workforce by 5-8% to produce efficiencies and refocus the Department on the President's priorities and restoring readiness in the forces," Acting Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Darin Selnick said in a statement, said the German media outlet.
The department will start this effort by laying off 5,400 probationary employees. The term probationary is generally used to describe employees who have been brought on within the last year and have yet to gain civil service protection.
US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has said cuts are necessary to "find redundancies" and to get rid of the "last vestiges" of former US President Joe Biden's influence on the department, such as efforts related to diversity, equity and inclusion, and climate change, according to DW.
Hegseth said he welcomes Tesla billionaire Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which is tasked with US President Donald Trump's aims to downsize the federal government. Musk has said he aims to weed out fraud and wasteful spending in the federal bureaucracy.
The Defense Department is the largest agency in the federal government.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in 2023 that the department had around 700,000 civilian workers. The GAO said the number of civilian employees who are veterans of the military stood at 38.91% in fiscal year 2021.
Trump on Friday also said he is replacing General Charles "CQ" Brown as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff with Lieutenant General Dan Caine of the US Air Force. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is the highest-ranking member of the military and also serves as an advisor to the president, reported DW.
Departments targeted by DOGE
In addition to the Pentagon, DOGE is targeting a wide number of agencies in the federal government, including the Internal Revenue Service, the National Institutes of Health and the Federal Aviation Administration, among others.
In the early days of Trump's second term, his administration temporarily froze almost all foreign aid and sought to downsize the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The foreign aid freeze and the downsizing of the organization sparked lawsuits and protests, with some legal experts arguing that the dismantling is unconstitutional.
The DOGE team has also attempted to gain access to sensitive information at the Social Security Administration and the Treasury Department. A US judge in Manhattan on Friday prolonged a block keeping DOGE from Treasury Department systems after 19 Democratic state attorneys general filed a lawsuit, DW reported
Elon Musk and Republican lawmakers in Washington, D.C. argue that they have a mandate from the American people to make cuts after Trump won the presidency last year and the party gained control of both houses of the US Congress, added DW in its reports.
Democrats, however, have criticized the cuts as haphazard and said Elon Musk has potential conflicts of interest when making cuts. Musk is not only the CEO of electric vehicle company Tesla, but also the founder of aeronautics firm SpaceX and the owner of social media platform X.
The cuts have not only sparked concern in Washington, but have also prompted backlash in other parts of the country. Congressional Republicans who hold town halls with their constituents in their home districts have faced heated exchanges over DOGE's plans.
Scott Fitzgerald, a Republican US House member who represents a wealthy district in the state of Wisconsin, was met with jeers when he defended Musk's cost-cutting efforts in the Trump administration at a town hall this week, reported DW.
At the event in the Wisconsin city of West Bend, one citizen asked Fitzgerald if he would support using congressional subpoena power to make Elon Musk "answer some hard questions." Another attendee was holding a sign which said "Fire Musk."
Another Republican House member, Rich McCormick of Georgia, faced a crowd incensed by DOGE layoffs during a town hall in his home district. In the Georgia city of Roswell, McCormick was asked why the Trump administration was taking a "chainsaw approach" to laying off employees.
In a post on X, McCormick later posted that "I'm here. I respect the difference of opinions and it will continue to be an honest discussion."
Trump is not the only president to attempt to improve efficiency in the federal government.
After the 1980 election, then-Republican President Ronald Reagan ordered an investigation, commonly known as the Grace Commission, to make recommendations on budget cuts. Many of the recommendations were never implemented, said the Berlin based media outlet.