While the nation continues to debate whether Donald Trump and Elon Musk‘s new DOGE initiative and their firing of thousands of federal employees is constitutional or not, and the entire government grapples with the absolute chaos of having to deal with the billionaire CEO of X’s whims, the latest episode of which included sending a confusing email and threatening to fire people if they didn’t respond to it, some federal workers from inside DOGE are taking matters into their own hands and refusing to be complicit in this MAGA insanity. While February in general has been anything but easy for the federal government and the tens of thousands of workers that keep the gears grinding, the last few days have unleashed a new kind of madness in offices and departments all over the country. Many workers and agents have been wondering if they should respond to Elon’s email requiring them to list their accomplishments over the past week, confused by the contradictory information released by the administration and their own directors, most of whom seem to have advised their workers to ignore it, even if Trump himself supported the initiative and originally claimed the failure to respond would essentially amount to being “semi-fired or fired.” The chaos of scrambling to answer the email, and some officials going so far as to give access to employees without a computer (per CNN’s reporting) has already interrupted operations all across the board, so at some point, we just have to work up the courage to ask what everybody is thinking, perhaps even the most ardent MAGA enthusiasts: How is this helping anybody? This is the same question that a group of 21 technology staffers asked themselves recently, and upon finding no logical or sane answer, resigned from Elon’s newly instated Department of Government Efficiency. Per Associated Press, this is what the workers wrote in their resignation letter: “We swore to serve the American people and uphold our oath to the Constitution across presidential administrations. However, it has become clear that we can no longer honor those commitments.” The former DOGE employees also seemed to imply that most of the people who comprise the department are “political ideologues” only hired to further Trump and Musk’s agenda. Trump’s response to these resignations was to simply dismiss them via WH press secretary, Karoline Leavitt: “Anyone who thinks protests, lawsuits, and lawfare will deter President Trump must have been sleeping under a rock for the past several years. President Trump will not be deterred from delivering on the promises he made to make our federal government more efficient and more accountable to the hardworking American taxpayers.” And of course, Musk himself, in typical Musk fashion these days, took to X to call the resignation “fake news” (he’s really growing fond of this particular catchphrase) and wrote of the staffers: “These were Dem political holdovers who refused to return to the office. They would have been fired had they not resigned.” More fake news from Associated Propaganda. These were Dem political holdovers who refused to return to the office. They would have been fired had they not resigned.— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 25, 2025 So is it “fake news,” or did it really happen? It’s growing increasingly difficult to keep up with Musk and Trump’s lies, and it’s only been a month since this administration took over. The former staffers were part of USDS (United States Digital Service), which was slowly being integrated into DOGE. According to the staffers, Musk had several mystery individuals interview them, and it was obvious that these people, who had no badges and would not even give their names, were politically motivated and had little understanding of the technical aspects of the USDS staffers’ work. Now, one-third of the 65 staffers who were working at USDS quit on Tuesday and refused to be integrated into Musk’s DOGE. “We will not use our skills as technologists to compromise core government systems, jeopardize Americans’ sensitive data, or dismantle critical public services. We will not lend our expertise to carry out or legitimize DOGE’s actions,” the resignation letter reads. Still think Musk, the wealthiest man on Earth (that we know of) and the owner of the largest social media platform in the world, is championing free speech and working towards the betterment of government functions? If you don’t find all of these developments a line-by-line blueprint of an authoritarian story we’ve all read a dozen times over, then that’s fine. Give it some more time. As I said, we’re still only a month into this new administration, after all.