(C) Common Dreams
This story was originally published by Common Dreams and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
Government Tech Workers Forced to Defend Projects to Random Elon Musk Bros [1]
['Makena Kelly', 'Vittoria Elliott', 'Tim Marchman', 'Paresh Dave', 'David Gilbert', 'Dell Cameron', 'Kate Knibbs', 'Brian Barrett']
Date: 2025-01-30 23:58:11.857000+00:00
The recent installation of Elon Musk ally Thomas Shedd atop the federal IT structure has thrown an agency in charge of servicing much of the US government’s technical infrastructure into disarray.
Over the last few days, workers at the Technology Transformation Services (TTS), which is housed within the General Services Administration (GSA), have been summoned into what one source called “sneak attack” meetings to discuss their code and projects with total strangers—some quite young—who lacked official government email addresses and have been reticent to identify themselves. TTS workers have also received confusing transition guidance and a sudden DC office visit from Musk.
It was announced last week that Shedd, who previously worked as a software engineer for eight years at Tesla, Musk’s electric car company, would be the new TTS director. In emails to TTS staff, Shedd reinforced the Trump administration’s commitment to cutting costs and maximizing efficiency—something Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, has been charged with carrying out.
Got a Tip?
Are you a current or former employee at GSA or other government tech worker? We'd like to hear from you. Using a nonwork phone or computer, contact the reporters at
[email protected] or
[email protected]. You can also contact them more securely on Signal at makenakelly.32 or velliott88.18.
“I’ve spent my entire career in Silicon Valley,” Shedd wrote in an introductory email to staff last Thursday and obtained by WIRED. “If we work together and execute well we will be able to navigate the policies, leverage our technical expertise and be a critical part of accelerating technology adoption across agencies to enable great gains in efficiency.”
TTS helps develop the platforms and tools that underpin many government services, including analytics tools and API plugins that agencies can use to deploy tech faster. This means that the group has access to troves of government data and systems across agencies. That access is useful for standardizing the many, not always interoperable, systems that the federal government uses, but could also provide invaluable information to a private company or be weaponized against government employees and citizens.
Early Wednesday morning, rumors began to spread at TTS that employees would be receiving surprise one-on-one meeting notifications from management. During these brief meetings, employees would, according to a staff email that Shedd sent later on Tuesday, be asked to identify their biggest “wins” and the most significant “blockers” preventing them from working as efficiently as possible. The email linked to a Google Form questionnaire for employees to fill out ahead of their scheduled meetings. The invites included people without official GSA email accounts who were using Gmail addresses as well as official government accounts, multiple sources told WIRED.
“These should be items that you completed,” a screenshot of the form obtained by WIRED said. “It is OK to have a mix of big projects and small wins (examples: fixed a critical bug, shipped XYZ feature, saved this amount on a renegotiated contract, ect [sic] … If you are an engineer or designer please include a link to a PR [pull request] or a screenshot of one of your wins from the past 3 months.”
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-government-tech-workers-gsa-tts/
Published and (C) by Common Dreams
Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 3.0..
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/commondreams/
