Pentagon hits pause on plan to carry out mass firings of civilian employees, officials say
The Defense Department has temporarily paused a plan to carry out mass firings of civilian probationary employees until Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and the Pentagon’s Office of General Counsel can carry out a more thorough review of the impacts such firings could have on US military readiness, two defense officials familiar with the matter told CNN.
The pause comes after CNN reported on Wednesday that the mass terminations, which could affect over 50,000 civilian employees across the Pentagon, could run afoul of Title 10 section 129a of the US code. Following that report, Pentagon lawyers began reviewing the legality of the planned terminations more closely, the officials said.
That law says that the secretary of defense “may not reduce the civilian workforce programmed full-time equivalent levels unless the Secretary conducts an appropriate analysis” of how those firings could impact the US military’s lethality and readiness. The law also says that mitigating risk to US military readiness takes precedence over cost.
A senior defense official told CNN on Wednesday that such an analysis had not been carried out before military leaders were ordered to make lists of employees to fire.
The office of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth declined to comment.
Throughout this week, defense officials had been scrambling and working late into the night to create lists of individual workers who should be exempted from the firings because they are critical to ongoing mission support, including those who work in cybersecurity, intelligence, operations, foreign military sales and other critical national security roles, several defense officials said.
Hegseth said in a video posted to X on Thursday that the department was focusing on terminating lower-performing employees first. But defense officials told CNN that the Office of Personnel Management is using a broad justification for the firings, arguing to DoD that these probationary employees don’t contribute positively to the Pentagon’s overall performance because they are no longer needed.
This story has been updated with additional reporting.
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What We Know About Pentagon Cuts—As Defense Department Pauses Mass Firings
The Defense Department has temporarily paused a plan to lay off thousands of probationary employees, CNN reported Friday, after the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency began cost-cutting efforts at the agency last week.
The Pentagon is seen from Air Force One as it flies over Washington, March 2, 2022.
A wave of layoffs that could impact more than 50,000 probationary employees was paused by the Defense Department until Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the Pentagon’s Office of General Counsel reviewed how the firings could impact military readiness, two officials familiar with the matter told CNN.
The DOGE X account confirmed on Feb. 14 it began working with the Defense Department, saying it had a “great kickoff” and was “looking forward to working together to safely save taxpayer dollars and eliminate waste, fraud and abuse.”
Information on the cuts DOGE and Hegseth will make is not yet public, but The Washington Post reported Wednesday Hegseth sent a memo to some senior leaders in the DoD telling them to come up with plans for 8% cuts in each of the next five years.
Hegseth reportedly said in the memo that President Donald Trump’s charge to the department—to “achieve Peace through Strength”—is clear and they “must act urgently to revive the warrior ethos, rebuild our military, and reestablish deterrence.”
On Tuesday night, Bloomberg reported the Pentagon began sending Trump’s team lists of probationary employees who may be targeted in federal workforce cuts.
Forbes has reached out to the Department of Defense for comment.
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“Our budget will resource the fighting force we need, cease unnecessary defense spending, reject excessive bureaucracy, and drive actionable reform including progress on the audit,” Hegseth reportedly said in the memo, which was obtained by The Washington Post.
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The memo outlined 17 categories the Trump administration wants to be exempt from the budget cuts, Bloomberg and The Washington Post reported. Among those categories are operations at the southern U.S. border—which has been a focus of Trump’s since taking office—modernizing nuclear weapons and missile defense, acquiring one-way attack drones, the Air Force’s new Collaborative Combat Aircraft and private sector medical care and more, the outlets reported.
Every year Congress has to pass the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which gives authorization of appropriations and policies for the DoD for the coming year and typically passes with bipartisan support. Historically, significant cuts to the DoD’s budget are not common, at least in part because the department’s bases and programs operate so broadly across the U.S. that proposed cuts tend to lead lawmakers to oppose cuts that would impact their areas, Bloomberg reported. If the proposed 8% annual cuts happen, The Washington Post reported it would be the largest effort to reduce spending in the department in more than a decade.
On Feb. 11, Hegseth said he would “welcome” Musk, whom he called “a great patriot,” and DOGE to the Pentagon to improve efficiency. “There are waste, redundancies and head counts in headquarters that need to be addressed,” Hegseth told reporters at the time, adding: “there’s plenty of places where we want the keen eye of DOGE” to look for efficiency measures, but he said “we’ll do it in coordination, we’re not going to do things that are to the detriment of American operational or tactical capabilities.”
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Trump has given mixed messages on Defense spending since taking office in late January. Last week, Trump said he thinks the U.S. could cut the military budget in half at some point in the future, CNBC reported, though Trump said days earlier in a Fox News interview that he wants to raise defense spending.
Around $850 billion. That’s how big the Defense Department’s budget is for fiscal year 2025. The Congressional Budget Office reports that around one-sixth of federal spending goes toward national defense.
Musk and DOGE have been making their way through different federal departments with the goals of slashing what it views as wasteful or inefficient spending. As of Monday, the Musk-led agency said it had saved the government $55 billion through things like fraud detection, contract and lease cancellations and regulatory savings. DOGE’s actions are facing constant criticism and legal challenges, though, as Democrats and nonprofit groups argue the agency is going beyond its authority in making cuts and staff reductions, and is illegally gaining access to sensitive government data. DOGE recently scored a legal win, though, when a federal judge Tuesday denied a request from 14 state attorneys general that would have immediately blocked Musk and DOGE from accessing data or firing federal employees.
Share prices of Palantir, a software company and defense contractor, quickly fell about 12% shortly after The Washington Post’s report of Hegseth’s memo about budget cuts came out. Shares closed down 10% on the day at $112.06, erasing almost two weeks of gains.
Here’s Where Trump’s Government Layoffs Are—As DOGE Reportedly Accesses Employee Info At Pentagon (Forbes)
Palantir Stock Suddenly Falls 10% After Report Of Incoming Pentagon Budget Cuts (Forbes)
Here Are All The Major Lawsuits Against Trump And Musk: Trump Administration Asks Supreme Court To Let It Fire Ethics Official (Forbes)
Molly Bohannon is a reporter on the news team, where she covers a range of breaking news stories including politics,… Read More
Molly Bohannon is a reporter on the news team, where she covers a range of breaking news stories including politics,
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WHAT PARTS OF THE DEFENSE DEPARTMENT COULD BE SAFE FROM CUTS?
ARE DEFENSE SPENDING CUTS COMMON?
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As Defense preps for mass firings, Hegseth says a hiring freeze and more firings are coming
The Pentagon courtyard in April 2024. U.S. ARMY / BERNARDO FULLER
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Updated: Feb. 21, 11:16 a.m. ET.
The Defense Department is preparing for mass firings of civilian employees, according to several current employees and internal communications, bringing the Trump administration’s federal-workforce-reduction efforts to the government’s largest agency. The dismissals were expected to begin as soon as Friday, according to multiple employees informed of the plans.
[On Friday, CNN reported that Pentagon leaders had put the firings on hold because they had not performed an analysis of the cuts’ likely effect on lethality and readiness, as required by law.]
In a video posted to social media late on Thursday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth confirmed that the department was doing a “reevaluation of our probationary workforce” in compliance with the Office of Personnel Management’s Jan. 20 directive.
Hegseth added that this would be just the start of a more comprehensive “really thorough look at our workforce top to bottom, and it will be top to bottom, to see where we can find and eliminate redundancies. Now common sense would tell us where we should start, right? We start with poor performers amongst our probationary employees because that is common sense and you want the best and brightest.”
The secretary also said that he would soon impose a department-wide hiring freeze and “take more time to identify, on a performance-based standard, who we’re going to hire, and reward hardworking employees who are central to the core warfighting mission. So we’re going to take a little bit more time, make sure top to bottom we’re doing a review, those who we need, who are the best and brightest are going to stay. Those who are underperformers won’t.”
He gave no timeframe for these moves. He also did not say how they might comport with laws that give hiring preference to veterans and offer broad protections to career federal employees.
After the department was largely exempted from President Trump’s federal hiring freeze, much of its civilian workforce had expected it would again be carved out from the mandate to fire probationary employees—generally speaking, that means workers hired or promoted within the past year. The administration gave word this week, however, that it expected the Pentagon to cut its own workforce.
On Thursday, commands and agencies across Defense continued to compile lists of probationary employees, including ones that are to be exempted from firing. Some employees have been told to expect few exemptions within their commands or teams, while others reported their leaders were pushing for more.
A warning email
Members of the White House’s DOGE office made their first Pentagon visit last Friday, according to a social-media post. That same day, an official in the Pentagon’s policy shop sent a warning email to staff.
“The news on probationary employees is very concerning – to the individuals, their offices, and our organization overall,” the official wrote. “If someone in Policy is in a probationary status, it’s because Policy went through a great deal of effort to bring them onboard to fill critical roles in our support to the Secretary of Defense, and those individuals are making important contributions to our mission.”
Probationary employees are an easy target for staff reductions, as it becomes much harder to fire a federal employee without substantial cause once they have completed their first year of service.
Orders to get moving
The situation developed rapidly this week and supervisors, employees and human resources staff scrambled to share pertinent information.
One Defense Information Systems Agency employee said their leadership team was notified Monday evening that they must move ahead with identifying and, eventually, firing probationary employees. DISA leaders were seeking to “limit the damage” by exempting at least some employees based on mission needs, but no final decisions had been made as of Tuesday afternoon, the employee said.
On Wednesday, leaders of a component of the Air Force Material Command told employees that they were working with the Air Force to “clarify who specifically by-name might be affected and to ensure we thoughtfully implement any direction that formalizes.”
“Currently, we have no specific details about which positions might be affected, the timeline, or means for any potential actions,” the leadership team said in a message to staff.
The message said that employees should update and save their resumes, download their performance reviews, and retain copies of their personal records and certifications. Employees were also advised to save their supervisors’ contact information.
“We understand this news is concerning,” the message said. “We are committed to keeping you informed and providing support throughout this process.”
Army commands have received the same guidance, according to a source who spoke with Defense One. Another source said Space Force organizations were told to submit their lists on Wednesday afternoon.
On Thursday, Army Medical Command leaders told their staff via an email that they could be affected, although the command’s leaders “have not yet received specific details regarding how this will be implemented.”
“Thank you for your professionalism and unwavering commitment to Army Medicine,” the email said. “As we navigate these changes together, we will continue to share updates as soon as they become available.”
An Army Medical Command employee who provides care to active-duty personnel, dependents, and retirees said their name was included in a list of probationary employees sent up the chain of command. Initially, the employee had been told their position was safe from cuts, but “the mood has definitely shifted and all of that ‘no way it’ll happen to you’ is gone now.”
One Navy employee who joined their command’s all-hands meeting on Thursday said they were told to expect the termination notices to hit inboxes as soon as that evening. Another Navy civilian was told in a similar all-hands meeting that firings would commence Friday morning.
“HR has been telling us to download all of our documents and prepare to be terminated,” the second Navy employee said.
On one Air Force command-wide call, a lieutenant general broke down crying as she relayed the news about upcoming firings, according to an employee present on the call. That employee was told by management the firings would “come hard and fast,” and in a matter of days rather than a week.
Elsewhere, leaders of a Navy agency, the name of which Defense One is withholding to protect against reprisals, sent their staff a message in which they said they were reviewing a list of 700 probationary employees and had 29 categories for exemptions, including veterans, military spouses, and members of other favored hiring groups.
“I want to ensure you that we are working with the highest levels of Navy leadership to ensure [we retain] the largest number possible of our talented people,” the message reads. “While we wait for further guidance, let’s please all do our best to support each other during this challenging time.”
As employees reported that morale has tanked as a result of the news this week, leaders attempted to reassure employees of their value.
“Please know that your contributions are invaluable, and our mission remains critical,” the Army Medical Command leaders said in their email. “We are truly grateful for your dedication, resilience, and continued service.”
One DOD civilian told Defense One that employees are cleaning out their workspaces in anticipation of firing, having heard from other federal agencies that fired employees were not given time to gather their belongings.
The White House has released no comprehensive tally of workers fired. So far, as many as 10,000 have been fired at the Agriculture, Commerce, Energy, Veterans Affairs, and other departments, as well as at the Environmental Protection Agency, OPM, and DOGE—formerly known as the U.S. Digital Service—itself.
OPM data shows that the federal government hired more than 200,000 employees over the past year.
Audrey Decker and Bradley Peniston contributed to this report.
Correction: Due to an editing error, an earlier version of this report mischaracterized the system of exemptions. There are 29 categories.
Do you work in the national-security sphere? Tell us how these efforts are affecting you. Contact Meghann Myers (mmyers@defenseone.com; Signal: meghann.myers55), Eric Katz (ekatz@govexec.com; Signal: erickatz.28), or Audrey Decker (adecker@defenseone.com, Signal: adecker.59).
NEXT STORY: Hegseth seeks to shift $50 billion in FY26 budget proposal
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth speaks to reporters after a NATO defense ministers meeting in Brussels on February 13, 2025. SIMON WOHLFAHRT/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has directed Pentagon officials to find about $50 billion in the Biden administration’s fiscal 2026 budget proposal that can be redirected to new priorities, according to a late-Wednesday statement by his acting deputy.
Funds should be moved from “so-called ‘climate change’ and other woke programs” and “excessive bureaucracy” to Trump-administration priorities, such as securing the border, building an “Iron Dome” for the United States, and ending DEI programs, acting deputy defense secretary Robert Salesses said in the statement..
“The department will develop a list of potential offsets that could be used to fund these priorities, as well as to refocus the department on its core mission of deterring and winning wars. The offsets are targeted at 8% of the Biden Administration’s FY-26 budget, totaling around $50 billion, which will then be spent on programs aligned with President Trump’s priorities,” Salesses said in the statement.
The fiscal 2025 Defense Authorization Act, passed in December, adhered to the Biden administration’s topline request of $849.9 billion for the Pentagon. Negotiations on the appropriations bill are still ongoing, more than five months into the fiscal year. In November, the administration’s fiscal 2026 proposal was expected to be around $876.8 billion, although then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin recommended boosting it to $926.5 billion.
Salesses’ statement follows recent reporting by the Washington Post that Hegseth ordered Pentagon leaders to cut 8 percent from the defense budget in each of the next five years. However, the new statement seems to paint a different picture, clarifying that they will merely move money around, rather than cut the funding completely, and does not confirm the Post’s reporting regarding the five-year timeline.
While it’s common for new administrations to adjust the budget proposals of their predecessors, an 8-percent shift is more than usual.
No date has yet been announced for sending the revamped budget proposal to Congress, which usually occurs in February except in the first year of a new administration, when it often arrives a month or more later.
Bloomberg first reported the shift in funding.
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