Software engineer and former Department of Government Efficiency

Since President Donald Trump and Tesla/SpaceX CEO Elon Musk began their public feud, staffers at Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are now wondering whether they themselves will still have jobs in the Trump administration.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that DOGE staffers across multiple federal agencies — whose jobs have mostly consisted of singling out probationary federal workers for mass layoffs — are now in fear of losing their own employment given their ties to Musk. According to the Journal, the White House is defending DOGE's mass firings, though one former staffer who previously worked for Musk's quasi-agency expressed fear that DOGE itself may soon crumble.

"I worry with Elon gone, no one will join, and it will just slowly fade away," software engineer Sahil Lavinigia told the Journal, adding that his work "felt like pushing a boulder up a mountain."

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After the Trump-Musk spat reached a fever pitch on Thursday — with Musk calling on Congress to "KILL the BILL" (in reference to the massive budget bill currently being debated in the Senate) — DOGE staffers were reportedly texting each other frantically wondering whether their jobs would be next on the chopping block. That news prompted Amazon Web Services senior software development engineer Alex Wood to post to Bluesky: "It’s a shame that they cut research funding because even with recent advances we still don’t have a violin small enough for this."

"As a #firedfed, I wish a very sincere F--- You to all the worried DOGE staff, and warm Hope The Door Slams Your D--- Off On The Way Out," environmental toxicologist and former federal employee J.C. Rallo wrote on the platform.

Users of Musk's X social media platform also found joy in the thought of Musk's disciples within the federal government fretting about losing their jobs. Massachusetts legislative aide Rob Cohen acknowledged the "potentially incredible irony" of people who fired government workers en masse now being the ones worried about their own potential firings. Former NFL executive Upton Bell tweeted that he hoped "those leeches are fired" in response to the Journal's report. Puck News' Julia Ioffe wondered: "When has the revolution ever not eaten its own?"

"Alex, I'll take people who I hope have terrible lives for $100," author Angel Luis Colón wrote on Bluesky.

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Click here to read the Journal's report in its entirety (subscription required).