Judge orders Donald Trump to rehire thousands of employees fired for ‘poor performance’ by him and Elon Musk
President Donald Trump has received an order by a US District Court judge to rehire thousands of federal workers he axed on the grounds of a ‘lie’.
Californian federal judge William H Alsup found that at least 30,000 probationary employees working at the Department of Veterans Affairs, Department of Energy, Department of Defense, Department of Agriculture, Department of the Treasury and the Department of the Interior, were wrongfully fired for ‘poor performance’.
The new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), is the executioner responsible for the mass exodus of the federal workers, and its made up of a team co-ordinated by Tesla CEO Elon Musk and former Republican presidential candidate, Vivek Ramaswamy.
Their mission is to streamline the US government through plans to axe thousands of jobs and drastically reduce the wage bill, and once they have finished their mission, they have vowed to disband the department – setting a completion date of no later than July 4, 2026… Independence Day next year.
As Trump puts it, their primary objective is to ‘dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies’.
The number of continuing claims, a proxy for the number of people receiving benefits, filed by federal workers for the week ended February 22 was 8,215, up from 7,412 the week prior (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Now, speaking in court today (March 13), Alsup said of the firing of probationary workers: “It is sad, a sad day when our government would fire some good employee and say it was based on performance when they know good and well that’s a lie.”
Many of those that lost their jobs discovered that the cited reason they were axed was on the grounds of poor performance, despite receiving good performance evaluations from their bosses prior to the cut.
It isn’t the first ruling Alsup has passed on the topic as on February 27, he said that the firing was illegal because the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) did not have the authority to order the sackings.
Demonstrators gather outside of the Office of Personnel Management in Washington, DC on February 7, to protest federal layoffs and demand the termination of Elon Musk from the Department of Government Efficiency (BRYAN DOZIER/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)
After firing thousands of employees, the OPM then amended a January 20 memo on probationary employees.
The American Federation of Government Employees claimed this was the OPM’s admission to having acted unlawfully.
The union issued a statement on the matter earlier this month, it read in part: “OPM’s revision of its Jan 20 memo is a clear admission that it unlawfully directed federal agencies to carry out mass terminations of probationary employees – which aligns with Judge Alsup’s recent decision in our lawsuit challenging these illegal firings.
“Every agency should immediately rescind these unlawful terminations and reinstate everyone who was illegally fired.”
It comes as a federal judge ordered DOGE to reveal its government plan and identify all employees.