Thousands of Pentagon Civilian Workers Will Be Fired Next Week as Trump Purge Begins

The Pentagon announced Friday it will fire 5,400 civilian employees next week -- and potentially tens of thousands more -- as part of President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk's ongoing effort to slash personnel and spending throughout the federal government.

The massive round of firings is part of an "initial effort" to cut the Defense Department's civilian workforce by 5% to 8% and was to be followed up with a hiring freeze, as thousands of employees at other federal agencies have been terminated in recent weeks or enticed to resign during the early days of the Trump administration.

"We expect approximately 5,400 probationary workers will be released beginning next week as part of this initial effort, after which we will implement a hiring freeze while we conduct a further analysis of our personnel needs," Darin Selnick, the man who is currently performing the duties of the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, said in a statement.

"As the secretary made clear, it is simply not in the public interest to retain individuals whose contributions are not mission-critical," Selnick said.

It was unclear on Friday what positions and employees would be affected, and the Pentagon did not provide any additional information beyond the brief statement.

Almost half of the civilian employees in the department are veterans.

The department was apparently backing off plans to fire all civilian employees still in the early stages of their employment. The move Friday also comes after firings at the Department of Veterans Affairs, as well as many other agencies.

The announcement is the first concrete word from the Defense Department on how it plans to proceed with its effort to reduce its civilian workforce. Media reports emerged earlier this week that the Pentagon planned to fire roughly 50,000 probationary employees en masse.

However, CNN reported Wednesday that the plan would run afoul of the law.

In a video posted to social media Thursday evening, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the plan is to conduct a "really thorough look at our workforce top to bottom, and it will be top to bottom, to see where we can find and eliminate redundancies."

"Now, common sense would tell us where we should start, right? We start with poor performers amongst our probationary employees because that is common sense, and you want the best and brightest," Hegseth said.

Friday's statement from Selnick said the big reduction in the DoD civilian workforce is meant to "produce efficiencies and refocus the department on the president's priorities and restoring readiness in the force."

The Pentagon's top priorities are securing U.S. borders, building an "Iron Dome for America," and ending diversity programs, according to a statement Wednesday by Robert Salesses, who is performing the duties of deputy secretary of defense.

In his 8-minute video Thursday, Hegseth took several opportunities to slam "legacy media" with the claim they had "misrepresented" or incorrectly reported on the efforts of Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, which arrived at the Pentagon this week to begin accessing its spending data.

However, a 2023 study by the Government Accountability Office estimated that the department had around 700,000 civilian employees. A reduction of 5% to 8% would mean that Hegseth and his deputies are ultimately looking to fire the same number of employees reported earlier this week—between 35,000 and 56,000 people.

That same report found that, in 2021, 287,000 Defense Department employees -- just under 39% -- were veterans. According to a union representing government employees, that percentage has now risen to 46%.

Furthermore, Hegseth is not the first leader in the Trump administration to claim that a purge of employees would focus on low performers. However, reporting from CNN showed that, whatever the intent, the outcome seems to be that the firings are arbitrary and often encompass top-performing employees.

DOGE's efforts to trim the federal workforce have also generated numerous headlines about the Trump administration firing key employees, such as experts responsible for America's nuclear weapons or scientists trying to fight a worsening bird flu outbreak, only to realize their mistake and try to hire those employees back.

'TELL IT LIKE IT IS' Defense News has also reported that DOGE's efforts at the Treasury Department have led to it snagging sensitive veterans' data, including information about VA benefits, leading to concerns from experts and Democrats about the safety of that data, as well as the reliability of future payments of veterans benefits.

Numerous reports have emerged from other agencies targeted by the Trump administration for reducing the number of employees being fired in surprise, mass emails, and sometimes even taking supervisors by surprise.

Selnick's statement claimed that, as they embark on the massive purge of employees, "the department will treat our workers with dignity and respect as it always does."

Hegseth's message on Thursday said that he was looking to develop a new "performance-based standard" for future hires.

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-- By James W. Thomas

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