When Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency took a chainsaw to the federal workforce this winter, the dust felt like it might never settle.

The administration said the initiative was designed to "streamline the Federal Government, eliminate unnecessary programs, and reduce bureaucratic inefficiency." Chaotic rollouts, weekend emails, contentious court battles, tech wunderkinds let loose, and muddled directives came to define the early months of the Trump administration's cost-cutting effort. Nobody knew what the next week might bring.

Now, as the initiative's six-month mark approaches — and a Supreme Court ruling allowed the stalled firings to proceed — many former federal workers have had time to reflect on what it all meant.

"It's always going to be part of who I am, regardless of what my jobs entail in the future," former National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration employee Tom Di Liberto told Business Insider. "I'll always be known as that, as part of that group of people."

In a series of conversations with BI, six former government employees spoke about their career shifts, their advice to other workers, and what life is like outside the government.

Egan Reich, 45, Department of Labor

Reich joined the Department of Labor in 2010. He worked in a variety of roles, including director of media and editorial services.

During Trump's first term, Reich said, federal workers were largely left alone to do their jobs. When the president's second term came around, the energy across federal agencies was noticeably different: Reich said that press inquiries revolved around DOGE, HR, or IT, rather than grants, policy, or enforcement.

"For a couple months, as appointees trickled in and DOGE started to make itself known, it became a very strange, paranoid, alienating experience," Reich said. "It became clear they really wanted people gone."

He accepted the agency's second deferred resignation offer in April, which allowed employees to resign while receiving pay through the fall. "There was just no way I was going to make it through four years of this," he said.

Reich is now on the job hunt, finishing up a TV pilot with his brother, and spending more time with his daughter. He's casting a wide net when it comes to communications roles, and has applied for around 25 jobs, he said. He tries hard to ensure he's not falling into self-pity.

"I'm glad that I'm not there, but I'm anxious, right? I'm just knowing I need to pay the mortgage and find a job, and hopefully it will be one where I can still spend time with my daughter."

His day-to-day hasn't changed much: He wakes up and goes to bed at the same time, and school drop-off and pick-up remain the same. His disorientation stems from something a bit more existential.

"It's been a lot more of a change in my mind and ways of looking at the world than lifestyle. Something has definitely broken. It's a lot bigger than my job," he said.

Kira Carrigan, 36, Office of Personnel Management

Carrigan started at OPM in December 2024. She had a remote job as an HR specialist.

Carrigan has been unable to search for a new role because she's moving across the country for her husband's military job. Federal jobs are especially important for military spouses, since they typically offer more scheduling and work-from-home flexibility than the private sector.

She started working at OPM on December 16, and was fired less than two months later on a mass video call.

"I miss my job and the remote work ability to allow me continued employment through my military spouse relocation," Carrigan said.

Carrigan said she refused deferred resignation both times it was offered, and she's pursuing an appeal to the Merit Systems Protection Board in a last-ditch attempt to regain her federal employment.

"I do want to return, but I would have significant moral issues serving under this administration," she said. Barring a return to the federal government, she said, "I'm hoping to find something in my local city government or school district."

Rachel Brittin, 47, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Brittin started at NOAA in 2023. She coordinated with the agency's private and public sector stakeholders.

Brittin was first fired from NOAA on February 27, reinstated, and fired again on April 10.

"Losing my job at NOAA was more than a career setback — it was emotionally exhausting and deeply disorienting," Brittin said. "I poured myself into the mission, only to be abruptly cut out."

Getting fired as a probationary employee was a challenge; Brittin said she didn't have any chance to defend her record.

Brittin said she's applied to dozens of jobs, including in the private sector, and hopes to stay in communications at a mission-driven organization, but it's been hard to land anything with so many "highly qualified candidates" on the market.

Ideally, she'd stay at a science-based organization, but is open to other opportunities. Brittin sees her job in the federal workforce as an "asset," in part because she mastered in-demand skills: "Navigating complexity, staying mission-focused, working under pressure, adapting to change."

For now, she's "hanging on" financially, and her husband has a secure job that's keeping them afloat. She's tried to stay busy by taking online courses, volunteering to help friends and startups, and networking.

"Knowing others in the same boat as me has helped me feel not so alone," she said.

Tom Di Liberto, 40, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Di Liberto started at NOAA in 2023. He worked in public affairs and was a climate spokesperson.

After being fired as a probationary employee in February, Di Liberto said he was lucky to find work as a media director at a nonprofit climate organization. But getting there wasn't easy, and he knows many others are still grinding through the job hunt.

He said former federal workers should remember being fired doesn't reflect their worth and they shouldn't be afraid to discuss the reductions in force with potential employers.

"It was also a bit weird during the interview process when asked to describe yourself and why you want this job. I did not have plans of getting a new job," he said. He said he made sure to emphasize his primary mission is addressing climate change.

His job search began in February, and he started his new job in early June. He spent frugally and leaned on his wife's income to support their family. During those months, he cooked more and cut back on takeout; he also prioritized his mental health with walks and Legos.

The private sector has been an adjustment, he said. It's been odd, for example, to work with fewer people and be able to upgrade software quickly instead of over a few months. Di Liberto also estimated that the NGO jobs he was looking at paid between 20% and 40% less than his role at NOAA.

He's reminded of his past life living in DC, where he encounters others who were also let go from government jobs. Di Liberto's first grader recently brought up his father's job loss in school, where it led to a class-wide conversation, he said.

Jonathan Kamens, 55, US Digital Service

Kamens started at USDS in 2023. He was a software engineer and was detailed to a cybersecurity role at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Kamens was fired from the US Digital Service — now the US DOGE Service — in February, and he landed a new job in March working remotely for a private-sector company based in Australia. He said that he's fortunate to be getting a paycheck, but the slashing of the federal workforce continues to weigh him down.

"In micro, I have a job, I'm getting paid to work, I can support my family. But in macro, the whole world is burning," Kamens said. He added that it's difficult to live his normal life "and continue to work in a system that in many ways is disintegrating around you."

He said that he's "minimally engaged" with other colleagues who left the federal workforce because it was taking a toll on his mental health. He said public servants who are still employed with the federal government face challenges under the continued influence of DOGE.

"There is a really strong normalcy bias happening," Kamens said. "In order for them to continue to function, they have to believe that this is just another administration and it will be fine after the midterms or 2028."

Nagela Nukuna, 30, US Digital Service

Nukuna started at USDS in 2022. She advised on and implemented domestic policy, working across agencies on funding, innovation, and automation projects.

Nukuna never saw herself working for a nonprofit. But that's where she landed after she was fired from the USDS on February 14.

"I ran through most of my savings to weather that time," Nukuna said. "Luckily I was able to get a job but I did have some financial hardship and strain over that time, especially because it was just unexpected."

Her government job paid a lot less than private sector positions she'd held before, so she was in the red since taking her job at USDS. Her spending didn't drastically change after getting fired, since it was already carefully calculated.

Nukuna began to look for jobs outside the government after the election. Some of her work at USDS was related to immigration, and she thought she might be impacted by future job cuts. She said she applied to 85 jobs, mainly in the tech and AI spaces, and "got a bajillion rejections" before landing her current role at an education nonprofit a month after her firing.

Generally, Nukuna tried to use her past government work to her advantage during the job search, and said some interviewers asked if she could work with people she disagreed with politically.

"Luckily, because I started earlier, I had some leads already and people that I've been talking to, and I just went on high drive once I got fired," she said. "There was a period where I was doing like five interviews a week and all day exercises."

She said she does mental health check-ins with friends who are still working for the federal government. Nukuna said she likely would have left her USDS role voluntarily due to the mental toll it was taking on her.

Although she had previously worked in the private sector, she chose the nonprofit route this time because she was "really drawn to the mission" and the people.

• The US government spent $5 trillion to stimulate the economy during the pandemic.
• Much was lost to fraud, and several bills would extend deadlines to file charges.
• A bill involving the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant, which BI previously reported on, moved forward Wednesday.

A Senate committee on Wednesday advanced a bill that would give prosecutors more time to bring fraud charges tied to two pandemic-era relief programs — including one that, as Business Insider has reported, awarded millions of dollars to wealthy musicians who used the money on private jets, luxury goods, and parties.

Federal investigators believe at least 6% of the $5 trillion allocated for pandemic relief was routed to fraudsters or people and businesses who didn't qualify. Prosecutors have brought charges over a small fraction of that spending, and could run out of time to bring charges in thousands of cases that were referred to them.

Currently, prosecutors have five years after many fraud-related crimes occur to bring charges. The bill would give them an extra five years to file criminal charges against anyone who defrauded the $28 billion Restaurant Revitalization Fund or the $14 billion Shuttered Venue Operators Grant.

Originally pitched as a lifeline for independent venues and arts groups, the SVOG program ended up awarding billions with limited guardrails, and a Business Insider investigation found that pop stars like Chris Brown, Lil Wayne, and Marshmello used the money for jets, bonuses, and a birthday bash.

Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa, who chairs the Small Business Committee that moved the bill forward, told Business Insider that the government should be "going after the people that truly didn't deserve the money."

"What we saw was a lot of celebrities that were gaming the system," she said, "that were able to take those dollars and buy jets and throw fancy parties and do things like that — boost up their wardrobe. That's not what the dollars were for."

The celebrities Business Insider reported on didn't previously reply to comment requests, except for Lil Wayne, who responded to a reporter's questions with an explicit sexual overture. The SBA has defended its fraud controls and said in late 2024 that it was still looking into some grants.

The agency has recently sent out hundreds of letters to SVOG grantees demanding that they repay their grants, according to people in the entertainment industry, but details on which grantees were targeted were not available.

Maggie Clemmons, an agency representative, told BI that the SBA is "continuously fighting to claw back fraudulently-obtained COVID funds, including within the SVOG program" and criticized "inaction" by the Biden administration.

The Restaurant Revitalization Fund, which cut checks of up to $10 million, has been scrutinized by auditors. Nearly a quarter of funds were awarded without doing enough to verify that grantees were eligible, the Small Business Administration's inspector general said last year, and the agency found that improper payments were "likely" in 53 out of 122 restaurant awards it analyzed.

The bill still needs to pass the Senate and House of Representatives before it becomes law. And even if the statute of limitations to bring charges is extended, whether prosecutors will clear out the backlog of pandemic-fraud cases is an open question. The agency's inspector general has said the SBA should also extend the time period for which grant recipients hold on to their records.

"My hope would be that given the priorities of the Department of Justice, that somewhere in that mix, we have those that will go after the fraudsters," Ernst said. "Fraud is fraud, and our taxpayers really need to know that the federal government takes it seriously."

The Ernst bill, the SBA Fraud Enforcement Extension Act, advanced without opposition from Democrats.

In 2022, lawmakers similarly extended the deadline to bring fraud charges over the Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Injury Disaster Loans from five years to 10.

Congress also allocated at least $653 billion to fund extra unemployment benefits during the pandemic. The House of Representatives passed a bill in March to allow more time to prosecute unemployment benefit fraud, but that bill hasn't advanced in the Senate.