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You’re Fired: Pink Slips dripping with blood [1]
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Date: 2025-02-19
The phrase “You’re Fired” earned Trump a lot of money over 11 seasons of hosting The Apprentice (2004–2015). He left the show to run for President. Prior to the show, Trump, a real estate developer, received $413 million from his father, which he “built” into six bankruptcies. The show took a mediocre businessman and transformed him through the magic of un-reality TV into an imposing business leader. It seems obvious that he believed his own hype. More importantly, it gave Trump national name recognition and credibility—the businessperson who was going to save America. Without the show and the domineering bluster that he refined in the campaign, his political career would likely have ended as quickly as it began.
His first presidency was a minor-league performance at best. It was self-mocking as he declared one infrastructure week after another with no infrastructure development actually occurring. Notably, in that first season, he fired a number of people, except he never had the guts to do it in person. It was either through a tweet or some public announcement far, far from the person he was firing—more the cowardly lion than the mighty Oz.
Now we are in season two, and we are back to The Apprentice, although Trump is still not doing the firing directly. In fact, he is not doing most of the firing. In his place, we have the evil genius Elon Musk. One of the things that connects Trump and Musk is their seeming total lack of empathy and their impulsiveness.
Of course, there is overstaffing and bloat in the government. The same is true of large corporations. Usually, it is about 10% in both the public and private sectors. If there were to be an effective reduction in force, it would take months of surgical excisions. But no, this process, because of the two egos involved, has to be outrageous, brutal, and indiscriminate. USAID is gone because of Musk’s animosity. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is under attack because Musk wants to convert Twitter/X into a digital payment app and doesn’t want any oversight of his corrupt intent. If you see a trend emerging, Musk demanded that Michael Whitaker, the head of the FAA, with a term through 2028, be fired. Trump didn’t have to pull the trigger because Whitaker resigned on January 20, 2025. Oh! Did you know that in September 2024, Whitaker proposed fines of $600,000 against Musk’s company, SpaceX? Then, there were firings within the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). They involved about 20 members responsible for neurological and physical medicine devices, including those overseeing Musk’s Neuralink trials.
In this, Musk and Trump are replacing the deep state with the corrupt state. The brand-new Attorney General Pam Bondi announced on her first day in office that the Department of Justice prosecutions under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) would be limited to the criminal operations of drug cartels and transnational criminal organizations only, which means that the corporate community will be free to bribe outside the U.S. as they please. Trump followed her announcement with an executive order supporting it. Of course, corruption inside the federal government had been aided by Trump’s firing of 17 Inspector Generals on January 25, 2025. And who can ignore the seven resignations over Deputy AG Emil Bove’s corrupt order to have the charges of corruption dropped against the corrupt Mayor of New York City, Eric Adams? But I digress.
Most positions in the federal government have a one-year probation, while some have two. Meat-cleaver style, those on probation are being hacked out of the federal workforce. Others are being told, “You’re fired,” for unacceptable performance despite the fact that they had just received a performance review noting their exceptional work, confirming that Musk and his merry band of adolescent tech bros lack any moral compass.
It is challenging to get accurate numbers of firings, but the postscript includes estimates of the “You’re Fired” syndrome by Musk and Trump. The firings are indiscriminate, ill-considered, and harmful to the workings of the federal government. They fired nearly 400 people at the FAA, despite four plane crashes since Trump took office and the fact that the FAA was already short 600 technicians, struggling with a hopelessly antiquated Air Traffic Control system. Musk fired 1,300 employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the face of a measles outbreak in Texas with 58 confirmed cases, 13 hospitalizations, and a suspected 300 additional undiagnosed cases among mostly unvaccinated people. Added to this is the H5N1 avian influenza (bird flu) infecting humans. Now they are trying to hire back some of the people who were working on the bird flu. And then, in Africa in 2025, there have been outbreaks of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD), Marburg Virus Disease (MVD), and Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease (HFMD). Does Trump address them there as Obama did with Ebola in 2014-2015, or does he wait until they come to America? In another stroke of genius, Musk and the Department of Energy fired 350 federal personnel who were working on the nation’s nuclear weapons program. Trump reversed the stupidity within 24 hours, but the Department of Energy did not know how to contact the fired workers. Let’s hope nothing goes wrong!
Federal employees are seldom regarded with gratitude despite their commitment and professionalism. Most of the time, they are just taken for granted, although the MAGA cult takes them with grievance. The actions of Trump and Musk are not solving the problems in the federal government. Instead, they are creating a workforce that will live in fear, harbor grievances due to this brutality, have low morale and loyalty, and be less effective. Their work will become just a job instead of a career motivated by a commitment to serving the common good.
The consequences of these reckless actions will reverberate for years, creating dysfunction, instability, and crises that we can scarcely begin to imagine.
Time left to January 20, 2029: 1,431 days
PS: The following are the best estimates of the number of firings, along with 75,000 federal employees taking the so-called “buyout.”
1 USAID: 9.700 employees fired, and all contractors
2 Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB): Musk has fired 170 employees with the promise of eliminating all 1,700 employees in the CFPB.
3 Department of Veterans Affairs (VA): Over 1,000 employees fired
4 Department of Health and Human Services (HHS): Musk fired approximately 5,200 employees, including 1,300 employees with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
5 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA): 388 employees fired.
6 Department of the Interior: Musk fired about 2,300 employees, including approximately 1,000 from the National Park Service and about 800 from the Bureau of Land Management.
7 Department of Agriculture: The U.S. Forest Service saw approximately 3,400 employees fired, about 10% of its workforce.
8 Department of Energy: Between 1,200 and 2,000 employees were fired, affecting offices related to loans and nuclear security.
9 Federal Aviation Administration (FAA): About 300 employees were fired
10 National Science Foundation (NSF): 168 employees were fired, 10% of the work force.
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