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Paige Fusco

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.

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Elon Musk listens as President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on Feb. 11, 2025.

REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

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.

REUTERS/Nathan Howard

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.

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