More than 150 employees responsible for managing and upgrading the U.S. nuclear arsenal have been fired or forced out by Elon Musk’s government cost-cutting task force DOGE.
The National Nuclear Security Administration was already understaffed, and now, it has lost engineers, scientists, safety experts, and project managers, raising serious questions about nuclear safety and transportation, according to a report in The New York Times.
Officials originally thought the agency would be spared by Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—which with President Donald Trump’s blessing has been attempting to purge the civil service through buyouts and layoffs—because of its vital national security mission.
But DOGE has fired 27 probationary employees at the small but vital NNSA and has successfully offered buyouts to 130 more. About 2,000 employees at the NNSA monitor more than 60,000 contract employees who carry out much of the agency’s work.
Across the federal government, employees taking the buyouts tend to be experts with skills in demand in the private sector who will be hard to replace, according to the Times.
At the NNSA, those included the deputy facility operations manager at a laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico, that makes spheres of radioactive plutonium called “pits” that are fitted into warheads. That lab carries out some of the agency’s most high-risk operations, a former manager told the Times, and is now short about 20 employees.
Five employees have also left a field office in Las Vegas where scientists conduct nuclear safety experiments—including a senior facility representative. Among the people who were fired was a biochemist and engineer who led the team that enforces safety and environmental standards at a Texas plant that assembles nuclear warheads.
Other employees who transport nuclear materials also tried to take the buyout, but about half were denied, the Times found, because the agency was so worried about staffing shortages. Four of them, however, were allowed to leave.
“We were already understaffed there,” Corey Hinderstein, the agency’s deputy administrator for nonproliferation under President Joe Biden, told the Times. “Because how do you get people with extremely advanced security skills to be able to defend a nuclear weapon on the road and are willing to be long-haul truckers?”
A spokesperson for the Department of Energy told the Times that, “Contrary to news reports, the Energy Department’s nuclear weapons production plants and nuclear laboratories are operated by federal contractors and have been exempt” from cuts.
The department also said that most of the fired employees handled administrative and clerical tasks that were not critical to the agency’s operation.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the Department of Energy for comment.
The Times found that “the bulk” of the people who took the buyouts occupied key roles. Many held a top-secret security clearance called Q that gave them access to information about how nuclear weapons are designed, produced, and used.
Current and federal officials also told the paper that eliminating federal oversight of contractors could lead to more waste and fraud, not less, as Trump and Musk have claimed.
“Do you have any construction projects at your house?” Hinderstein said. “You wouldn’t just say to the contractor: ‘I want something like this room. Have fun.’”
Agency officials speaking on the condition of anonymity said they didn’t think the government would let them hire replacements. Some of the people who left were nearing retirement, but instead of having time to train their replacements—which can take up to a year—their careers were simply cut short.
