DOGE then scrambles to rehire them as the National Nuclear Security Administration bleeds critical staffing.

The U.S. Department for Government Efficiency led by Elon Musk, the wealthiest man in history, has just made a terrible mistake during the orchestration of a new sweeping round of government layoffs – it fired critical nuclear specialists at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA).

The NNSA was one of a number of agencies hit by recent contract terminations - the CDC, Small Business Administration, Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, and the Department of Education.

This low-profile but important agency is responsible for maintaining and securing the U.S. nuclear arsenal, which is close to that of Russia. Disturbing its operations jeopardizes the U.S. national security and exposes the country to foreign threats.

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Apparently, the word nuclear wasn’t enough to give Musk and his DOGE-backed crew a pause to reflect. Between 300 and 400 nuclear arms personnel received abrupt termination emails, a move that the DOGE later admitted to be a mistake due to bureaucratic confusion.

As media reports surfaced in the aftermath, it became clear that the officials overseeing the firings didn't realize these workers were responsible for nuclear weapon oversight. Once the gravity of their blunder set in, the government scrambled to undo the damage—begging some of the now-jobless specialists to return.

But this isn’t easy: the former employees can’t access their government emails anymore, making re-establishing contact an uphill battle.

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If the DOGE initiative—a supposed crackdown on fraud and bureaucratic waste—was actually delivering results, this chaos might be more forgivable. But since Donald Trump took office, Musk’s cost-cutting crusade has repeatedly disrupted essential programs, from Education Department training to Consumer Financial Protection Bureau operations and NIH biomedical research.

The result? It saved a total of $37 billion – not “trillions of dollars in waste” as Trump had claimed.

Whether the ultimate goal will be achieved is a big question but whatever emerges at the end of this purging campaign will be based on breathtaking incompetence and loss of public confidence in the U.S. government.

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