Are you a current or former employee with a government agency affected by Trump’s immigration campaign? Email signature erasure in Musk’s outfit and USDA

Multiple agency sources told WIRED last week that several of Musk’s lieutenants had been granted access to key computer systems controlled by the GSA, an independent agency tasked by Congress with overseeing federal buildings and providing equipment, supplies, and IT support across the government.

The Office of Personnel Management email that encouraged federal employees to leave their jobs received widespread anger and resistance from labor unions, but the follow-up emails purporting to answer questions have been cold comfort. OPM sent out another email over the weekend with an FAQ page online, but it did not go over well with federal employees.

WIRED reported last week that Musk’s outfit had effectively taken over the US government’s human resources department. In this and other efforts, it is employing inexperienced young engineers whose ages range from 19 to 24—many of whom, public records show, are former interns or have been affiliated with Musk-aligned companies.

Last week, the Trump administration began a campaign that was supposed to force federal employees to leave their jobs. The leader of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which was led by Musk, has seized control of several federal agencies and sensitive government systems with apparent clearance from the White House.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s academy in Virginia was being painted over last week due to its “diversity” listing, a striking example of what the policy is all about. (According to an email from the FBI’s Office of Integrity and Compliance obtained by Mother Jones, the bureau no longer counts “diversity” among its core values.)

Trump’s agenda has seeped into even the most innocuous of places like email signatures. The people working for the federal government said they were ordered to remove pronouns from email signatures due to Trump’s anti- trans executive order. After receiving a deadline of end of day Monday, a person working for USDA told The Verge that all staff members’ signatures were wiped regardless of whether they had pronouns listed.

Are you a current or former employee with a government agency impacted by this? We would like to hear from you. Using a nonwork phone or computer, contact Dell Cameron securely at dell.3030 on Signal.

A federal worker complains that the US government is “not going to be a Fourth branch of government” and that the Oval Office for International Development and Environmental Protection are illegal

Multiple agency directors sent emails over the weekend telling staff that, due to President Donald Trump’s executive order, their offices would be removing the pronoun capability from Office 365. Employees were told that they needed to remove pronouns from their email signatures in order to comply with the directive.

Various automated efforts with employees at the United States Agency for International Development and the Environmental Protection Agency were confirmed by WIRED.

A lack of clarity internally has prompted alternative channels for federal workers to share information with one another. Federal workers can get help with their work, compare notes with one another, and boost their happiness by using the subreddit r/fednews. Other grassroots accounts like the Alt National Parks Service account give an updates feed to federal employees and members of the public.

The person who works with the Coast Guard said that he is disgusted at the lack of fire in their bellies. Another federal worker says that many lawmakers are “absolutely failing to meet the moment,” and questions why Democrats aren’t doing more to throw sand in the gears, like refusing to confirm Trump’s nominees or speaking in stronger terms against the demolition of government agencies and norms. If not now, when?

The pressure from elected officials ramped up on Monday, when a group of Democratic lawmakers held a press conference outside the USAID headquarters, calling Trump and Musk’s attempts to shut down USAID illegal.

“We don’t have a fourth branch of government called Elon Musk,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), said. Law enforcement stopped the group from entering the building.

The EPA Lost During a Critical Probationary Retrieval During the First Two Years: Employees and Public Officials on the Edge

The EPA is reeling after being told it has the right to immediately fire employees in an email last week. The email was sent to employees on a trial period who were hired within the past year. The warning was made to 1,100 people who were employees at the agency, according to the federal employee union representing EPA employees, the American Federation of Government Employees.

New hires that are still in a probationary period have fewer protections than other employees, says Cantello. The Trump administration knows that it is easier to get rid of them.

The email says “the process for probationary removal is that you receive a notice of termination, and your employment is ended immediately,” but doesn’t say when that process will begin.

The agency is at risk of losing 10% of its workforce if it takes into account the fact that employees can choose to take a deferred resignation.

“Losing this amount of staff would really hurt EPA’s ability to protect human health and the environment,” Cantello says, including recovery efforts following devastating wildfires around Los Angeles this month. The agency has hired 15,000 people since the first Trump administration, but there was an exodus of scientists from federal agencies during that time.

The EPA intranet service was down most of the work day, preventing employees from accessing their personnel records. If employees decide to file legal action against the agency in the future if they think they were illegally fired, those types of documents are crucial for keeping. The intranet service is also vital to the agency’s enforcement of environmental regulation. It is where employees record complaints. The EPA did not respond to a request for comment.

As nonpartisan staffers used to the changing whims of different administrations, federal civil servants are often not the quintessential activists. Every morning this week at 7:30AM, a peaceful protest is planned in front of the Office of Personnel Management in support of federal workers. Another rally is planned in front of the Treasury Department Tuesday afternoon, and a third near the Senate on Wednesday.

Through conversations with half a dozen federal workers, all but one of whom were granted anonymity because they feared retaliation for speaking out about the Trump administration’s actions, it’s clear that the hostile takeover of federal agencies is putting employees and contractors on edge, uncertain if they’ll have a job the next day.

An atmosphere of paranoia has been created by the crackdown on things like work from home or acknowledging gender. Many federal employees have moved work-related conversations to encrypted messaging app Signal. And the tech industry’s embrace of right wing politics and politicians has created a sense of distrust, a federal contractor says, with people fearing that communication on other platforms could be leaked by pro-Trump companies.

Federal employees know that if they choose not to comply or leave their jobs, someone else will do it, and things may get even worse. The federal worker observes that managers seem to be asking themselves if losing their job and putting their team at risk is worth it. “Or if this doesn’t completely go against my principles, should I accept it, tell my team to accept it, and live to fight another day?”

“People are angry at being accused of cheating the government by working from home,” one person who received the email said. We feel that we are not valued by the administration.

Department of Labor employees who work on grants were instructed to email grantees saying their funding would be cut off if it was in support of DEI initiatives. “No one wanted to send it, but basically [it felt like] if I don’t send it, my boss is going to send it,“ one employee who works on grants said. Their grantees who received the message were “freaking out,” since many nonprofits that rely on such funds can’t afford to fight back in a protracted battle. The employee said that it made their heart hurt to send it.

One example is how agencies were forced to respond to Trump’s executive order on “defending women,” which mandated official documents not include the term “gender” to refer to “sex-based distinctions.” But because of how quickly agencies needed to get into compliance, at least one opted to remove references to many gender resources altogether because there wasn’t enough time to change the wording in every instance.

“A lot of us are scared and feel betrayed,” a person who works for USAID told The Verge. People who are hired have an oath to protect the constitution. The humanitarian agency, which Musk dismantled, left workers wondering if the same thing would happen to their workplace. One Department of Labor employee says that they are scared about what happened at the US aid agency.