The Pentagon is sending Trump administration officials the names of probationary workers who could be targeted in an upcoming round of federal employee cuts, according to people familiar with the matter.
It’s not yet clear if the entire list submitted on Tuesday will be eliminated from the Pentagon’s workforce or if the staff reductions will affect a smaller subset, said one of the people, who declined to speak publicly on personnel matters that were not yet final.
Military staff creating the list were also asked to list justifications for personnel they wanted exempted from termination, one person said, adding that the list only included civilian employees — not active-duty service members.
President Donald Trump has said the Defense Department will be among the next targets as Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency fans out across the federal workforce cutting thousands of staff and identifying contracts and other expenses to eliminate.
Probationary employees — those within their first year or two on the job — have been the focus of staff cuts at many agencies because they aren’t subject to the same federal workforce protections as those who have been employed longer.
The Pentagon declined to comment. The White House and the Office of Personnel Management did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has been keen to emphasize that the Pentagon is eager to work with Musk’s team, saying earlier this month “we welcome DOGE to the Pentagon.”
Hegseth is also planning to seek reductions to forecasted military spending over the next five years and shift those dollars toward still-undefined defense priorities favored by the Trump administration, Bloomberg News has reported.
Trump, for his part, has suggested that he wants to increase military spending in the short term, but wants to decrease the costs of some weapons programs in the future, telling Fox News in an interview earlier this month that it was “crazy” to spend money on some bombs that may not be used.
Musk’s role in auditing the Pentagon’s expenses has also raised conflict-of-interest questions. His company SpaceX has received billions of dollars in federal contracts, including at the Department of Defense in recent years.
Military spending accounted for nearly half of the $1.8 trillion worth of US discretionary spending in fiscal year 2024, making it the largest pool of federal money outside of mandatory spending on entitlement programs like Social Security, Medicare and other benefits.
Cutting defense money and staff could spark a political firestorm in Congress, where several Republicans are seeking to increase military spending. The Defense Department’s budget is politically resilient because military bases, other facilities and programs are located in so many states and districts that historically any suggestion of cutbacks has prompted members of Congress to defend their own parochial interests.
Earlier on Tuesday, a federal judge denied a request to temporarily bar DOGE teams from accessing internal systems and removing employees from U.S. agencies, handing a win to Trump over one of his signature initiatives.
The ruling rejected a bid for immediate court intervention from Democratic state attorneys general who contend Musk is exercising power to reshape the U.S. government that is supposed to be reserved only for high-level, Senate-confirmed officials.
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