If you’ve ever worked for the government, you know the Office of Personnel Management—or OPM—is basically the HR department for the entire federal state. It’s usually a quiet, bureaucratic place that deals with things like dental insurance and retirement forms. But since January 2025, it’s become the front line of a massive power struggle. Honestly, it's been pretty wild to watch.
The big story everyone’s talking about is how Elon Musk's allies and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) essentially walked in and took the keys to the kingdom.
It wasn't just a change in leadership. It was a takeover.
By the time February 2025 rolled around, reports were leaking out that Musk’s team—including guys like Greg Hogan, a SpaceX veteran—had been embedded deep within the agency. They weren’t just sitting in meetings. They were reportedly setting up sofa beds in the director’s office and locking out career civil servants from their own databases.
How Elon Musk allies take control of federal human resources agency
The move started almost the second the new administration was sworn in. While the public was focused on flashy executive orders, a small team of Musk loyalists moved into the OPM headquarters at the Theodore Roosevelt Building.
This mattered because OPM holds the personal data of over 2 million federal employees. We’re talking Social Security numbers, home addresses, performance reviews, and payroll records.
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By January 30, 2025, senior career staff found themselves unable to log into the Enterprise Human Resources Integration system. That’s the "brain" of federal HR. If you control that, you control who gets paid, who gets promoted, and, most importantly, who gets fired.
The "Five Things" Email and the Resignation Test
One of the weirdest moments in this whole saga was the "What did you do last week?" email. Musk basically decided to run the federal government like a distressed tech startup.
In February 2025, a blast email went out to federal workers across several agencies. It told them to list five things they had accomplished that week. Musk then hopped on X (formerly Twitter) and told everyone that failing to respond would be treated as a resignation.
Think about that for a second.
You have doctors at the VA, FBI agents, and scientists at the EPA being told by a billionaire that if they don't reply to a "trivial" email, they don't have a job anymore. Some agencies, like the FBI under Kash Patel and the Department of Defense, actually told their people to ignore the request. They basically said, "We handle our own personnel, thanks."
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It created total chaos.
Scott Kupor and the New Guard
While the DOGE teams were breaking things, a more "official" phase of the takeover happened later in the year. In July 2025, the Senate confirmed Scott Kupor as the new Director of OPM.
Kupor isn't a government guy. He came from the world of venture capital—specifically Andreessen Horowitz. He’s a Musk ally in spirit and philosophy. Since he took over, the "chainsaw" approach of early 2025 has shifted into something more systematic.
- Schedule F is back: This is a big deal. It reclassifies tens of thousands of career civil servants as "at-will" employees, making them much easier to fire.
- The "Fork in the Road": Early in the term, OPM sent out offers for "deferred resignations," basically paying people to quit.
- Performance Normalization: Kupor issued guidance in June 2025 telling agencies they need to stop giving so many "outstanding" ratings. He wants a bell curve where more people are ranked as underperformers, which creates a paper trail for future layoffs.
Honestly, it’s a total 180 from how the civil service has operated since the 1880s. For over a century, the idea was that you couldn't fire people for political reasons. Now? That wall is looking pretty thin.
Why This Matters to You
Even if you don't work for the government, this affects how your country runs. OPM manages over $1 trillion in assets and retirement funds. When the people running those systems are replaced by tech loyalists who value speed over "due process," things can break.
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For example, by late 2025, the Partnership for Public Service tracked over 212,000 reductions in the federal workforce. That’s a lot of institutional knowledge walking out the door.
We’ve already seen the results of this "efficiency."
- There have been massive bottlenecks in processing federal retirement benefits.
- A $1 limit was placed on many government credit cards, which sounds like a great way to save money until an agency can't buy basic office supplies or pay for emergency repairs.
- A new Federal Workforce Data site launched in January 2026, which is much "prettier" and faster, but critics say it's being used to cherry-pick data to justify more cuts.
What’s Next for the Federal Workforce?
As we move into 2026, the focus has shifted from "purging" to "recruiting." OPM recently launched something called US Tech Force. The goal is to hire 1,000 AI experts and techies from places like Palantir and Amazon.
Basically, they are clearing out the "old guard" and replacing them with a new generation of tech-literate, loyalist workers. It's a fundamental reimagining of what a government worker is supposed to be.
If you are a federal employee or looking to become one, the "old" rules of job security are mostly gone. You’re now entering an environment that looks much more like Silicon Valley than Washington D.C.
Actionable Insights for Navigating the New OPM
If you are currently in the federal system or dealing with these changes, here is how things stand:
- Document Everything: Performance reviews are being "normalized" (i.e., graded harder). Keep your own record of accomplishments. Don't rely on the OPM's new data systems to keep your history safe.
- Monitor Your Status: Check if your position has been reclassified under the revived Schedule F. At-will status changes your legal rights significantly.
- Watch the Tech Force: If you have technical skills, OPM is currently bypassing many traditional hiring hurdles for tech roles. This is where the budget is actually growing.
- Prepare for In-Person Requirements: The administration has been very clear—if you don't show up to the office, you're out. Remote work is effectively dead for the vast majority of federal roles.
The takeover of the Office of Personnel Management by Musk’s allies is no longer a "plan"—it’s the reality of how the U.S. government functions in 2026. Whether it leads to a more efficient machine or a hollowed-out bureaucracy depends entirely on who you ask. But one thing is for sure: the quiet days of federal HR are over.