The Defense Department is aiming to cut 5% to 8% of its civilian workforce, it announced Friday, potentially eliminating tens of thousands of jobs from the sprawling agency—as the Pentagon joins a massive federal cost-cutting drive led by billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.
The Pentagon is seen from Air Force One as it flies over Washington, March 2, 2022.
The Pentagon hopes to trim 5% to 8% of its civilian staff—or roughly 40,000 to 65,000 of the department’s more than 800,000 civilians—to “produce efficiencies and refocus the Department on the President's priorities and restoring readiness in the force,” acting undersecretary Darin Selnick said in a statement Friday.
Selnick said the cuts will start next week by terminating 5,400 probationary workers, or recent hires who are typically easier to fire than longstanding federal employees, followed by a hiring freeze.
Earlier Friday, CNN reported a wave of layoffs that could impact more than 50,000 probationary employees was paused by the Defense Department so Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and top legal officials can look into how the firings could impact military readiness.
The DOGE X account confirmed on Feb. 14 it began working with the Defense Department, saying it had a “great kickoff” and was “looking forward to working together to safely save taxpayer dollars and eliminate waste, fraud and abuse.”
Information on the exact cuts DOGE and Hegseth will make is not yet public, but The Washington Post reported Wednesday Hegseth sent a memo to some senior leaders in the DoD telling them to come up with plans for 8% cuts in each of the next five years.
Hegseth reportedly said in the memo that President Donald Trump’s charge to the department—to “achieve Peace through Strength”—is clear and they “must act urgently to revive the warrior ethos, rebuild our military, and reestablish deterrence.”
On Tuesday night, Bloomberg reported the Pentagon began sending Trump’s team lists of probationary employees who may be targeted in federal workforce cuts.
Forbes has reached out to the Department of Defense for comment.
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“Our budget will resource the fighting force we need, cease unnecessary defense spending, reject excessive bureaucracy, and drive actionable reform including progress on the audit,” Hegseth reportedly said in the memo, which was obtained by The Washington Post.
The DoD employs some 2.1 million service members and 811,000 civilians according to a 2024 report, making it by far the largest federal agency.
The memo outlined 17 categories the Trump administration wants to be exempt from the budget cuts, Bloomberg and The Washington Post reported. Among those categories are operations at the southern U.S. border—which has been a focus of Trump’s since taking office—modernizing nuclear weapons and missile defense, acquiring one-way attack drones, the Air Force’s new Collaborative Combat Aircraft and private sector medical care and more, the outlets reported.
Every year Congress has to pass the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which gives authorization of appropriations and policies for the DoD for the coming year and typically passes with bipartisan support. Historically, significant cuts to the DoD’s budget are not common, at least in part because the department’s bases and programs operate so broadly across the U.S. that proposed cuts tend to lead lawmakers to oppose cuts that would impact their areas, Bloomberg reported. If the proposed 8% annual cuts happen, The Washington Post reported it would be the largest effort to reduce spending in the department in more than a decade.
On Feb. 11, Hegseth said he would “welcome” Musk, whom he called “a great patriot,” and DOGE to the Pentagon to improve efficiency. “There are waste, redundancies and head counts in headquarters that need to be addressed,” Hegseth told reporters at the time, adding: “there’s plenty of places where we want the keen eye of DOGE” to look for efficiency measures, but he said “we’ll do it in coordination, we’re not going to do things that are to the detriment of American operational or tactical capabilities.”
Trump has given mixed messages on Defense spending since taking office in late January. Last week, Trump said he thinks the U.S. could cut the military budget in half at some point in the future, CNBC reported, though Trump said days earlier in a Fox News interview that he wants to raise defense spending.
Around $850 billion. That’s how big the Defense Department’s budget is for fiscal year 2025. The Congressional Budget Office reports that around one-sixth of federal spending goes toward national defense.
Musk and DOGE have been making their way through different federal departments with the goals of slashing what it views as wasteful or inefficient spending. As of Monday, the Musk-led agency said it had saved the government $55 billion through things like fraud detection, contract and lease cancellations and regulatory savings. DOGE’s actions are facing constant criticism and legal challenges, though, as Democrats and nonprofit groups argue the agency is going beyond its authority in making cuts and staff reductions, and is illegally gaining access to sensitive government data. DOGE recently scored a legal win, though, when a federal judge Tuesday denied a request from 14 state attorneys general that would have immediately blocked Musk and DOGE from accessing data or firing federal employees.
Share prices of Palantir, a software company and defense contractor, quickly fell about 12% shortly after The Washington Post’s report of Hegseth’s memo about budget cuts came out. Shares closed down 10% on the day at $112.06, erasing almost two weeks of gains.
Here’s Where Trump’s Government Layoffs Are—As DOGE Reportedly Accesses Employee Info At Pentagon (Forbes)
Palantir Stock Suddenly Falls 10% After Report Of Incoming Pentagon Budget Cuts (Forbes)