Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency has upended the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, where staffers were fired and rehired — then spammed with a deluge of obscene emails.
More than 1,000 workers have been fired from the NOAA, one of the world's leading research agencies, and at least that many are expected to be removed from their posts as President Donald Trump and his billionaire adviser look to slash government spending.
But current and former officials there ripped DOGE efforts as amateurish, reported The Guardian.
“Dysfunction is the polite way of putting it, you could also say it is incompetent chaos,” said Andrew Rosenberg, formerly the deputy director of NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service.
“This administration is paying people on administrative leave and asking staff to name five good things they’ve done but they get email bounce backs when they do because the inboxes are full," Rosenberg added. "If you were looking at the inverse of efficiency, this would be it.”
DOGE already had to call back some of the fired staffers, which included researchers who track hurricanes and others in key roles at the National Weather Service. Employees report that Musk's team used a non-secure email server to send messages from the Office of Personnel Management that resulted in them getting dozens of bizarre emails in January, including one with a lewd subject line about Trump and another stating: “the next 4 years has an [sic] 99% chance of s--t showers.”
“The feeling has been ‘you’ve got to be kidding me,’” said one staffer, who was fired but is now on administrative leave pending potential reinstatement.
“These people at Doge think they are the best at what they do but they can’t even protect an email list," that staffer added. "They fired people and then had to hire them back, they are cutting contracts without learning what they are. I mean, good lord, take a minute before doing this. It’s an absolute joke.”
Remaining staffers are trying their best to continue their mission, Rosenberg said, but he said the DOGE cuts have already resulted in degraded service, and he said the public would notice soon enough.
“A year from now people will notice things are missing that used to be there and DOGE and others promoting this will say: ‘See, told you government can’t do things’, rather than: ‘We broke it and it got worse,’” Rosenberg said.
“NOAA staff right now aren’t happy because they don’t know if they will keep their jobs," he added. "Work has been made harder for no reason and they are being told they are worthless. No one has even explained why they are doing all of this c--p.”