The campaign by President Donald Trump and his adviser Elon Musk to radically cut back the US bureaucracy spread, firing more than 9,500 workers who handled everything from managing federal lands to caring for military veterans.
Workers at the departments of Interior, Energy, Veterans Affairs, Agriculture and Health and Human Services had their employment terminated in a drive that so far has largely - but not exclusively - targeted probationary employees in their first year on the job who have fewer employment protections.
The firings, reported by Reuters and other major US media outlets, are in addition to the roughly 75,000 workers who have taken a buyout that Mr Trump and Mr Musk have offered to get them to leave voluntarily, according to the White House. That equals about 3% of the 2.3 million person civilian workforce.
Mr Trump says the federal government is too bloated and too much money is lost to waste and fraud. The government has some $36 trillion in debt and ran a $1.8 trillion deficit last year, and there is bipartisan agreement on the need for reform.
But congressional Democrats say Mr Trump is encroaching on the legislature's constitutional authority over federal spending, even as his fellow Republicans who control majorities in both chambers of Congress have largely supported the moves.
The speed and breadth of Mr Musk's effort has produced growing frustration among some of Mr Trump's aides over a lack of coordination, including White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, sources told Reuters.
In addition to the job reductions, Mr Trump and Mr Musk have tried to gut civil service protections for career employees, frozen most US foreign aid and attempted to shutter some government agencies such as the US Agency for International Development and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau CFPB almost entirely.
Almost half of the probationary workers at the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and others at the National Institutes of Health are being forced out, sources familiar with the job cuts told Reuters.
The US Forest Service is firing around 3,400 recent hires, while the National Park Service is terminating about 1,000, people familiar with the plans said yesterday.
The tax-collecting Internal Revenue Service is preparing to fire thousands of workers next week, two people familiar with the matter said, a move that could squeeze resources ahead of Americans' 15 April deadline to file income taxes.
Read more: Thousands fired as Trump, Musk take axe to US government offices
Other spending cuts have raised concerns that vital services were in danger. A month after wildfires devastated Los Angeles, federal programmes have stopped hiring seasonal firefighters and halted removal of fire hazards such as dead wood from forests, according to organisations impacted by the reductions.
Critics have questioned the blunt force approach of Mr Musk, the world's richest person, who has amassed extraordinary influence in Mr Trump's presidency.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent shrugged off those concerns, comparing Mr Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency to a financial audit.
"These are serious people, and they're going from agency to agency, doing an audit, looking for best practices," he told Fox Business Network.
Mr Musk is relying on a coterie of young engineers with little government experience to manage his DOGE campaign, and their early cuts appear to be driven more by ideology than driving down costs, budget experts say.
'Betrayed by my country'
Fired federal workers expressed shock.
"I've done a lot for my country and as a veteran who served his country, I feel like I've been betrayed by my country," said Nick Gioia, who served in the army and worked for the Department of Defence for a total of 17 years before joining the USDA's Economic Research Service in December only to be fired late Thursday.
"I don't feel like this has anything to do with federal workers, I feel like this is just a game," said Mr Gioia, who lives in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, and has a child with epilepsy.
"To sit here and watch people like Mr Musk tweet out how he feels like he's doing a great job, he doesn't realise what he's doing to people's lives."
Steve Lenkart, executive director of the National Federation of Federal Employees union, which represents more than 100,000 workers, said he expects Mr Musk, whose SpaceX businesses has major contracts with the US federal government, and the Trump administration to concentrate on agencies that regulate industry and finance.
"That's really what this whole thing is really all about," Mr Lenkart said. "It's getting the government out of the way of industry and incredibly rich people, which is why Elon Musk is so excited about this."
Nuclear cuts ‘partly rescinded’
Some attempts to fire government employees have been impeded by federal judges or second thoughts.
About 1,200 to 2,000 workers at the Department of Energy were laid off, including 325 from the National Nuclear Security Administration, which oversees the nuclear stockpile, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters yesterday.
But those layoffs have been "partly rescinded" to retain essential nuclear security workers, one of the sources said. It was unclear how many of the 325 firings were pulled back.
The administration has temporarily agreed not to fire anymore staff at the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, according to a court order issued, offering workers there an 11th-hour reprieve ahead of feared mass layoffs.
Unions representing federal workers have sued to block the buyout plan.
Three federal judges overseeing privacy cases against DOGE heard cases yesterday on whether Mr Musk's team should have access to Treasury Department payment systems and potentially sensitive data at US health, consumer protection and labor agencies.
In one of those, a federal judge in New York extended a temporary restraining order blocking DOGE from accessing Treasury Department systems. That order was put in place today.
Trump says auto tariffs to come 'around 2 April’
Separately, Mr Trump said that he planned to unveil tariffs on imported cars around 2 April, adding to a cascade of levies he has threatened since taking office.
Mr Trump's statement did not specify whether the tariffs would apply to all auto imports.
Since his inauguration on 20 January, Mr Trump has taken aim at allies and adversaries alike with threats of fresh duties.
He has referred to tariffs as a way to raise revenue, remedy trade imbalances and pressure countries to act on US concerns.
Experts have warned it is often Americans who pay the tariffs on US imports - not the foreign exporter.
Asked when he might unveil auto tariffs, Mr Trump said, "Maybe around 2 April."
He did not provide further details yesterday.
About 50% of the cars sold in the United States are manufactured within the country. Among imports, about half come from Mexico and Canada and the other half from other major auto-producing countries.
This latter group is led by Japan, South Korea and Germany, with Britain, Italy and Sweden a source of a smaller volume of imports.
In recent days, Ford CEO Jim Farley has blasted a proposed Mr Trump tariff of 25% on Mexico and Canada, noting that it disadvantages US companies that have integrated their supply chains across North America under trade agreements, including the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) negotiated in the first Trump administration.
