Trump’s DOGE is plotting how to fire federal workers who refuse to return to the office

Federal workers could be fired once Donald Trump returns to the White House if they still refuse to return to the office nearly five years after the end of COVID-19 lockdowns.

Speaking in Florida on Monday at his first post-election news conference, Trump discussed a wide range of topics, including federal workers finally returning to the office.

“If people don’t come back to work — stop coming to the office — they’re going to be fired,” Trump insisted.

The threat comes as it was revealed that only 12 percent of federal government office space in Washington DC is being used.

Trump’s DOGE team led by billionaire Tesla, SpaceX and X CEO Elon Musk and biotech millionaire Vivek Ramaswamy will have to find a way around a five-year exemption put in place by the Biden administration.

That won’t stop the presidential election, which has vowed to take the issue to court to get nearly 50,000 workers back to the office full-time.

He complained, “And someone in the Biden administration waived that for five years so people don’t have to come into the office for five years.”

‘It involved 49,000 people. They don’t have to go in for five years. They just signed this thing – it’s ridiculous. So they – it was like a gift to a union.”

“And of course we will go to court to stop this,” Trump promised.

Trump’s team will have to find a way around a five-year exemption created by the Biden administration.

That won’t stop the presidential election, which has vowed to take the issue to court to get nearly 50,000 workers back to the office full-time.

An X account created for DOGE posted an article last month about how 90 percent of the federal government’s office space is “going to waste.”

The early days of the coronavirus pandemic that hit the US in March 2020 led to a two-week quarantine where employees were sent home and told not to come into the office.

As the public health crisis continued, most workers eventually transitioned to a full-time work-from-home model — including thousands of federal government employees.

“Federal government agencies use an average of just 12% of the space in their DC headquarters,” DOGE wrote in a post on X last month.

“The Ministry of Agriculture, with space for more than 7,400 people, averaged 456 employees per day (6% occupancy),” the report noted.

DOGE’s X account reported on how 90 percent of federal office space is ‘going to waste’

Trump chose Elon Musk (left) to lead DOGE along with Vivek Ramaswamy. The two have been inseparable since election night on November 5

The account, likely run by Musk, asked, “Why are American taxpayer dollars being spent to maintain vacant buildings?”

Musk, who employs thousands of Americans, is a big supporter of employees going to the office for their workdays.

He thinks a great way to reduce waste in the federal government is to stop having staff work from home and bring them back to the office.