2 Mar 2025

DOGE Shuts Down Federal IT Efficiency Team 18F

by Bonnie | | 0

Elon Musk’s DOGE worker Thomas Shedd at the General Services Administration shut down 18F, an internal IT team that improved federal IT systems and created open source software for the government.

Shedd declared 18F a non-essential consulting function, much like DOGE itself, and cited two of Donald Trump’s executive orders as justification for closing the unit and putting all of its staff on administrative leave, apparently pending termination. All access to email and systems was cut off for fired workers around 1 a.m. when their termination was announced.

Staff at 18F are sufficiently expert to find and fix whatever hacks DOGE is inserting into federal software systems.

The team are supposed to return any government equipment in their possession but have no way to find out how or where to do so. The team immediately launched its own website to tell its story.

Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is a subset of a White House IT team, not a government department.

Click here for more details.

Click here to access 18f.org.

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