Trump Administration Brings Back Fired Nuclear Weapons Workers in DOGE Reversal; Dismissed Nuclear Bomb Specialists Recalled by Energy Department

By admin On Feb 20, 2025

Trump administration brings back fired nuclear weapons workers in DOGE reversal:

The Trump administration has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, in an about-face that has left workers confused and experts cautioning that DOGE’s blind cost cutting will put communities at risk.

Three U.S. officials who spoke to The Associated Press said up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration were abruptly laid off late Thursday, with some losing access to email before they’d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning to find they were locked out. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.

One of the hardest hit offices was the Pantex Plant near Amarillo, Texas, which saw about 30% of the cuts. Those employees work on reassembling warheads, one of the most sensitive jobs across the nuclear weapons enterprise, with the highest levels of clearance.

The hundreds let go at NNSA were part of a DOGE purge across the Department of Energy that targeted about 2,000 employees.

“The DOGE people are coming in with absolutely no knowledge of what these departments are responsible for,” said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, referencing Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency team. “They don’t seem to realize that it’s actually the department of nuclear weapons more than it is the Department of Energy.”

By late Friday night, the agency’s acting director, Teresa Robbins, issued a memo rescinding the firings for all but 28 of those hundreds of fired staff members.

“This letter serves as formal notification that the termination decision issued to you on Feb. 13, 2025 has been rescinded, effective immediately,” said the memo, which was obtained by the AP.

The accounts from the three officials contradict an official statement from the Department of Energy, which said fewer than 50 National Nuclear Security Administration staffers were let go, calling them “probationary employees” who “held primarily administrative and clerical roles.” —>READ MORE HERE

Dismissed nuclear bomb specialists recalled by Energy Department:

The Energy Department is seeking to bring back nuclear energy specialists after abruptly telling hundreds of workers that their jobs were eliminated, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The employees, responsible for designing and maintaining the nation’s cache of nuclear weapons at the National Nuclear Safety Administration, were part of a larger wave of workers dismissed from the Energy Department, drawing alarm from national security experts. Between 300 and 400 NNSA workers were terminated, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The agency’s quick reversal was announced Friday in an all-staff meeting. The NNSA is seeking to recall the workers because they deal with sensitive national security secrets, according to the people, who weren’t authorized to talk about the matter, which is not public.

Those cuts are especially concerning because the positions typically require high-level security clearances and training that can take 18 months or longer, said Jill Hruby, who served as the NNSA administrator during the Biden administration.

“These people are likely never going to come back and work for the government,” Hruby said in a phone interview. “We’ve had a very active program requiring an increase to our staff so the indiscriminate layoffs of people will be really difficult for the coming years.”

The firings — part of a wave of terminations across the federal government this week spurred by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency — underscore the chaos as the world’s richest man seeks to quickly overhaul the federal bureaucracy in Trump’s image. At the Small Business Administration earlier this week, some workers who were told they were being fired, received a second message telling them that they weren’t being terminated and that their jobs were safe — only to receive a third message telling them they were, in fact, out of a job.

The NNSA firings were part of a wider swath of dismissals across the Energy Department, which included employees at the Loan Programs Office, a recently formed unit to fund clean energy projects, the group responsible for preventing cyberattacks against the power grid, and the department’s general counsel office.