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Graphic Truth: How much has Trump cut from the federal workforce?
Since returning to office in January, US President Donald Trump has brought sweeping reductions to the federal workforce, firing or otherwise facilitating the departures of more than 200,000 government employees. It’s a stark contrast from the start of his first administration, when firings were more limited to high-ranking officials.
This is all part of Trump’s attempt to improve government efficiency and slash costs, but there’s just one problem: Congress controls the purse, and only 4.3% of the government budget goes to federal employees anyway. What’s more, some of these workforce cuts have faced legal challenges. Just on Friday, a judge halted the removal of 1,500 jobs at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
At other times, the president’s plans have won out in court. Earlier this month, the Supreme Court green-lighted the removal of 16,000 government workers who were on probation across a suite of federal agencies. Some staff have also been willing to go: Over 20,000 Internal Revenue Service officials — roughly one-fifth of the workforce — have accepted government buyouts.
Here’s a look at which departments and agencies have taken the brunt of Trump’s blows so far.
Elon Musk listens as President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on Feb. 11, 2025.
Trump cuts come to the National Science Foundation
Donald Trump’s administration laid off 170 employees at the National Science Foundation in February as part of a government-wide staff reduction. Critics say the cuts, which included artificial intelligence specialists, could hurt American competitiveness in AI research. While the agency said Monday it will reinstate 84 workers following a court ruling on March 3, experts warn the cuts, combined with looming government-wide staff reductions, could severely hamper the agency.
The NSF has historically helped America’s tech leadership, funding research that led to Google’s PageRank algorithm for its search engine and the underlying technology behind AI chatbots. These cuts come as the government is reportedly planning to terminate up to 500 probationary employees at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which oversees the US AI Safety Institute.
Meta’s Yann LeCun, the company’s chief AI scientist, wrote on LinkedIn that the US “seems set on destroying its public research funding system.”Elon Musk holds a chainsaw onstage as he attends the Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Maryland, on Feb. 20, 2025. The idea is that he's taking a chainsaw to the federal bureaucracy.
Musk seeks productivity lists amid federal crackdown as discontent emerges
Mimicking a tactic he used to slash the size of Twitter’s workforce, White House senior adviser Elon Musk on Saturday instructed all 2.3 million federal employees to list five things they “accomplished last week.” The deadline to respond is Monday by 11:59 p.m.
“Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation,” Musk wrote on social media.
This move is the latest effort from the Trump administration to remove government employees en masse. The White House offered buyouts to workers who chose to quit — roughly 65,000 reportedly accepted — and effectively mothballed the US Agency for International Development. The Pentagon started its own purge on Friday by ousting Gen. Charles Q. Brown, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti, and Air Force Vice Chief James C. Slife.
Several agencies, including the Department of Defense and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, told their employees on Sunday to hold off on responding to Musk’s email, in part over concerns about sharing classified information. The US Department of State informed its workers that it would respond to Musk’s email on their behalf. Others, like the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security, ordered their staff to reply.
Meanwhile, a backlash appears to be brewing in conservative parts of the country against Musk and US President Donald Trump over their planned government cuts. A group of voters in Georgia jeered their Republican congressman at a town hall on Thursday for backing the administration proposals. A Wisconsin lawmaker faced similar heckling on Friday in his rural conservative district. One Ohio Republican, who also represents a right-leaning area, tacitly rebuked Musk by reiterating that it was Congress who controls the purse, not him.
“What is bothering people is the sense that Donald Trump really does believe he’s king or ought to be,” Larry Sabato, a politics professor at the University of Virginia, told GZERO. “People who don’t take seriously his discussion about running for a third term are dead wrong.”