Federal workers return to offices amid threat from Elon Musk

Federal employees across the country, many of whom have worked from home since the COVID-19 pandemic, were back at agency offices Monday under President Donald Trump’s return-to-office mandate.

Billionaire Elon Musk, who is leading Trump's Department of Government Efficiency scouring government agencies for suspected waste, delivered a warning Monday to workers on his platform X.

“Starting this week, those who still fail to return to office will be placed on administrative leave,” Musk wrote.

Lee Zeldin, Trump's new administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, said Monday on X, formerly Twitter, “Full-time, COVID-era remote work is DONE under @POTUS leadership.”

In a video he posted, Zeldin said average attendance at EPA headquarters on Mondays and Fridays last year was less than 9% of employees.

“Our spacious, beautiful EPA headquarters spans two city blocks in D.C. across five buildings,” Zeldin said. “But our hallways have been too vacant, desks empty and cubicles filled with unoccupied chairs.”

It appears at least some federal agencies are not prepared for all remote workers to return to the office.

In an email to U.S. Department of Education Federal Student Aid employees on Friday obtained by The Associated Press, agency officials noted that some regional offices in Boston, Chicago, New York and San Francisco were not ready for workers to return. The message also noted that employees who live more than 50 miles from regional offices in some major cities would not be required to return to the office Monday.

“We should treat it like the first day of school — plan a little time in your calendar to get oriented, find your way around, and figure out how to connect in the conference rooms, etc.,” the email said. “There will, no doubt, be some who get lost or are late to class or have to scramble to find a seat because of a snafu.”

The email also noted that while some workers would begin reporting to offices Monday, others would begin relocating back to offices in phases through April and beyond.

Mike Galletly, president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 4016, said the information technology workers he represents at the U.S. Department of Agriculture across the country have been struggling to comply with the back-to-office mandate.

“For my bargaining unit members, it’s been a whole lot of work scrambling to find hardware for people, monitors, docking stations,” Galletly said. “You have an office that up until this month normally seated four people. Now they have to seat eight people.”

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is directing its remote employees to return to offices, even if they were hired into a remote role.

Federal workers with the department received the formal notice Monday in an email that was sent to employees who work more than 50 miles from a regional office. It says they will need to report to an office by April 28.

The federal government employed more than 3 million people as of November of last year. That accounted for nearly 1.9% of the nation’s entire civilian workforce, according to the Pew Research Center.

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Murphy reported from Oklahoma City, Okla.