Elon Musk speaks next to President Donald Trump, who is not shown, in the oval office of the White House in Washington, DC, February 11, 2025.
Kevin Lamarque | Reuters
Employees from Elon muskthe secrets of government effort, Doge, have pushed the most ranking officials on Department of Education – Even those who recently appointed President Donald Trump – from their own offices, remodeled furniture and set up white noise machines to muffle their vote, employees at the agency said.
Defended by her office, the acting of the Minister of Education, Denise Carter, was noticed last week that he was sitting in front of the main leadership apartment, one employee said. In the meantime, she was performing the duty of Secretary James Bergeron to move into her office, the sources of CNBC said, because Doge’s employees occupied him.
“They took over the top real estate; they were made at home,” CNBC said. “It was such an attitude,” we can do everything we want. “”
View of the building of the American Department of Education in Washington, DC, USA, February 1, 2025.
Annabelle Gordon | Reuters
The sources for this story were given anonymity because they were afraid of retaliation if they were named.
Downloading VIP offices on the seventh floor of the Washington headquarters, DC, representatives of the Working Group known as the Government Efficiency Department, and then sought office equipment around the building to “move to their junction”, the education department for the Department told CNBC.
Asked about work arrangements and office space, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Communications Madi Biedermann told CNBC: “Employees are federal employees. They swore, have the necessary background checks and approval and focus on making the department more costly -EFECTIVE, effective and responsible for taxpayers. ”
Trump has repeatedly stated his intention to dismantle the education department. As an agency approved by Congress, the Department cannot be removed without the approval of the congress.
But in the meantime, Musk and his Team it can slowly vote.
The White House spokesman did not answer CNBC questions at work in the Education Department.
Trump’s candidate for leading the Department of Education, Linda McMahonShe will have her hearing in a confirmation on Thursday.
Officials of the Department of Education described the tension between Doge -ai leadership leadership – including Republicans who arrived at the department to help in implementing a Agenda of conservative education.
Asked about the dynamics in the workplace, Biedermann said that Doge’s employees “work in collaboration with the department staff. There is nothing inappropriate or nasty.”
According to employees, however, it seems that the reach of teams compete with each other to get a very large title for a reduction in the budget.
On Monday, this title was really very big: contracts worth $ 881 million with the education department were canceled, according to the Doge Social Media account.
This competition element of the effort to reduce the costs of Doge is probably partly due to the rules that manage the employee of DOGE employees.
Most of the dogs are labeled “Special Government employees”, a category that isolate them from some federal publication requirements. But in exchange, the status limits the total number of days in which they can work annually to 130.
The way the teams seem to act are about four months to make all the cuts they can. After that, the agencies will be left to relegate.
Doge’s moving requirements
Day by day, the members of the Doge team were “secret”, said the current employee. “They didn’t talk.”
Some employees said they believe that they should physically stay out of the Doge employees, and one clerk described the entire vibe of the team as “scary”.
Constantly changing the demands of Doge’s employee about how much funds should reduce employees are confused and scared, two employees told CNBC.
Moreover, they said, it seems that the demands of the reach of teams are arbitrary, and are not rooted in any political or political goal.
In many cases, Doge teams do not tell employees of the departments that the contracts should cancel, employees said.
Instead, employees get a character, usually personally, not in writing, and said that so much money derives from the program, sources report. The second time they received a percentage of financing and said it was so reduced.
One employee recalled an employee of Doge to reduce about 80% of websites and services that support federal applications for student loan.
About 17 million families are applying for assistance at the Faculty every year using a free application for federal student assistance or Fafs, said Higher Education Expert Mark Kantrowitz.
