WASHINGTON, May 9 (Reuters) - The U.S. federal human

resources agency at the heart of billionaire Trump adviser Elon

Musk's efforts to slash the federal workforce on Friday canceled

a contract it had awarded to Workday and which had

excluded other bidders.

The contract for a new cloud-based HR platform, signed on

May 2 and awarded without seeking bids from rivals, had raised

eyebrows among current and former employees of the Office of

Personnel Management.

They had described the sole-source contract as irregular,

given the competition in an industry that includes ADP and SAP

, and expressed surprise to see OPM's largely

successful in-house HR platform on track to be replaced.

On Friday, a federal contracting website page about the

award was updated to state that the award opportunity was

canceled, without elaborating.

OPM and Workday did not respond to requests for comment.

OPM said earlier this month that the sole-source award was

necessary due to "operational failures" and federal mandates

that required immediate action.

The Workday project, while small at $342,200, had the

potential to set the stage for a much larger award, since many

federal agencies rely on the OPM HR platforms that the new

project sought to replace.

The award drew criticism as running counter to the mission

of the Department of Government Efficiency, which was set up by

Musk to make the government more efficient by firing workers and

cancelling contracts as well as by cracking down on waste and

abuse.

"This procurement undermined the integrity of DOGE, who was

supposed to root out fraud waste and abuse," said John Weiler,

director of the Information Technology Acquisition Advisory

Council, a government-chartered nonprofit group that makes

recommendations to improve federal IT contracting.

"This was a blatant disregard of the rule of law," he added,

citing federal contracting law and regulations.