by Nicholas Ballasy
Entrepreneurs Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, appointed by President-elect Donald Trump to make the federal government more lean and efficient, want employees to turn to their offices five days a week.
Musk, the founder of Tesla and SpaceX CEO, and Ramaswamy, a 2024 GOP presidential candidate, made their case in a Wall Street Journal op-ed Thursday.
Trump appointed them to run the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
“If federal employees don’t want to show up, American taxpayers shouldn’t pay them for the Covid-era privilege of staying home,” they wrote.
Ramaswamy has suggested they to return the office five days a week – 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. – instead of a “mass firing” to trim the federal bureaucracy.
A Federal News Network survey earlier this year showed roughly 30 percent of the 6,338 federal workers surveyed were working fully remote. Six percent was entirely in-office, which would leave about 64 percent with a hybrid work schedule.
The Office of Management and Budget conducted a survey in August which showed that “telework-eligible federal employees spent 61.2 percent of their work hours” at federal facilities as of May 2024, according to Government Executive.
Congress allocated billions to federal agencies during the COVID pandemic to setup employees for remote work.
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Nicholas Ballasy has been breaking news for more than a decade in the nation’s capital and questioning political leaders about the most pressing issues facing the nation. Since 2008, Ballasy has interviewed former President Bill Clinton, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, former President Donald Trump, Sen. Mitt Romney, Sen. Bernie Sanders, Sen. John McCain, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former Vice President Al Gore, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and more.
