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Trump and Musk aim to downsize federal government

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Probationary employees targeted for layoffs across

agencies

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Unions and states challenge legality of Musk's role

WASHINGTON, Feb 14 (Reuters) - Anxious U.S. federal

workers are expected to see another round of pink slips on

Friday as President Donald Trump and top adviser Elon Musk

pursue a wholesale downsizing of the government.

Thousands of workers at multiple government agencies have

been fired so far this week, most of them recently hired

employees still on probation at departments including Veterans

Affairs, Education and the Small Business Administration.

Officials from the Office of Personnel Management, which

oversees federal hiring, met with agencies on Thursday, advising

them to lay off their probationary employees, according to a

person familiar with the matter.

About 280,000 employees out of the 2.3 million member

civilian federal workforce were hired in the last two years,

with most still on probation and easier to fire, according to

government data.

Trump and Tesla CEO Musk's overhaul of the federal

government appeared to be widening as Musk aides arrived for the

first time on Thursday at the federal tax-collecting agency, the

Internal Revenue Service, and U.S. embassies were told to

prepare for staff cuts.

Trump says the federal government is too bloated and too

much money is lost to waste and fraud. The federal government

has some $36 trillion in debt and ran a $1.8 trillion deficit

last year, and there is bipartisan agreement on the need for

government reform.

His fellow Republicans who control majorities in both

chambers of the U.S. Congress have broadly supported the moves,

even as Democrats say Trump is encroaching on the legislature's

constitutional authority over federal spending.

Critics have also questioned the blunt force approach of

Musk, the world's richest person, who has amassed extraordinary

influence in Trump's presidency.

Firings at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau,

however, were going beyond probationary employees, sources said,

with some employees on fixed-term contracts being axed.

Trump and Musk have said they are committed to reducing the

size of the federal bureaucracy, which they charge is

unaccountable to the White House and blame for actively stalling

Trump's policy initiatives.

They have already offered some federal workers an incentive

package to quit voluntarily, tried to gut civil-service

protections for career employees, frozen most of U.S foreign aid

and have attempted to shutter some government agencies such as

the U.S. Agency for International Development and the CFPB

almost entirely.

About 75,000 workers have signed up for the buyout, the

White House said. That is equal to 3% of the civilian workforce.

Unions representing federal workers have already sued to

block the buyout plan and one of them, the American Federation

of Government Workers, said on Thursday it will fight the mass

firings of probationary employees.

"This is highly unusual to terminate all probationary

employees and is being done in a highly unusual manner. We are

reviewing all legal options," said J. Ward Morrow, assistant

general counsel for the AFGE.

A suit filed on Thursday by the attorneys general of 14

states alleges Musk was illegally appointed by Trump and seeks

an order barring him from taking any further government action.

Along with those court challenges, Musk and his Department

of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, have been hit with several

privacy lawsuits over their access to government computer

systems.

Two federal judges overseeing privacy cases against DOGE

will consider on Friday whether Musk's team will have access to

Treasury Department payment systems and potentially sensitive

data at U.S. health, consumer protection and labor agencies.

Musk has sent DOGE members into at least 16 government

agencies, where they have gained access to computer systems with

sensitive personnel and financial information, and sent workers

home.

DOGE did not respond to a request for comment on the

widespread layoffs, but a spokesperson for OPM said the firings

were in line with new government policy.