Hundreds of federal employees cut loose by Elon Musk have been given a tight deadline to decide whether to come back to work.
The General Services Administration has given laid-work workers who had managed government workplaces until the end of this week to accept or decline reinstatement, according to an internal memo obtained by The Associated Press, and those who return must report for duty on Oct. 6 after what would amount to a seven-month vacation paid by taxpayers.
"Ultimately, the outcome was the agency was left broken and understaffed,” said Chad Becker, a former GSA real estate official. “They didn’t have the people they needed to carry out basic functions.”
Agency representatives didn't respond to detailed questions about the memo issued Friday, and they also declined to discuss current staffing and cost overruns associated with leases terminated by the Department of Government Efficiency.
“GSA’s leadership team has reviewed workforce actions and is making adjustments in the best interest of the customer agencies we serve and the American taxpayers,” an agency spokesman told the AP in an email.
DOGE targeted the GSA, which had about 12,000 employees at the start of Donald Trump's second presidency, as a key area to cut out what Musk identified as waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government, and Musk aides embedded in the agency's headquarters sent out more than 800 lease cancellations and published a list of hundreds of government buildings to sell off.
However, those efforts were quickly dialed back in the face of public blowback, with more than 480 leashes set for termination have been spared and only 131 leases expired without the government actually leaving the properties, and the turmoil has caused the agencies to face additional costs because property owners haven't been able to rent out those spaces to other tenants.