Musk, Ramaswamy call for five-day in-office workweeks for federal employees

Entrepreneurs Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, appointed by President-elect Donald Trump to make the federal government more lean and efficient, want employees to turn to their offices five days a week.

Musk, the founder of Tesla and SpaceX CEO, and Ramaswamy, a 2024 GOP presidential candidate, made their case in a Wall Street Journal op-ed Thursday.

Trump appointed them to run the new Department of Government Efficiency.

“If federal employees don’t want to show up, American taxpayers shouldn’t pay them for the Covid-era privilege of staying home,” they wrote.

Ramaswamy has suggested they to return the office five days a week – 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. – instead of a "mass firing" to trim the federal bureaucracy.

A Federal News Network survey earlier this year showed roughly 30% of the 6,338 federal workers surveyed were working fully remote. Six percent was entirely in-office, which would leave about 64% with a hybrid work schedule. 

The Office of Management and Budget conducted a survey in August which showed that "telework-eligible federal employees spent 61.2% of their work hours" at federal facilities as of May 2024, according to Government Executive.

Congress allocated billions to federal agencies during the COVID pandemic to setup employees for remote work.