The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is housed in a modern concrete and glass building located just a few blocks from the White House. While the agency’s name might conjure up images of typical government bureaucracy, it actually plays a vital role as one of the nation’s key human resources entities. OPM oversees extensive records for around 2.1 million federal employees, as well as many individuals who have pursued federal jobs. Notably, the agency also has email addresses for almost all federal employees.
Recently, tensions have arisen as President Trump and Elon Musk have targeted the federal workforce and government spending. Their scrutiny has largely focused on Musk and his associates utilizing government data in unprecedented—and potentially questionable—ways. The executive offices on the fifth floor of OPM’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. are crucial to these initiatives.
Concerns among OPM’s career staff began to emerge during transition meetings with Trump administration officials. These sessions are critical for transferring essential information about ongoing projects, organizational structures, and onboarding new personnel.
However, Trump’s team seemed particularly fixated on OPM’s computer systems, according to an OPM insider. In those early conversations, Greg Hogan, now OPM’s chief information officer, spent considerable time probing into the agency’s computer systems, including access protocols, security measures, and the process for installing updates. “I sensed something wasn’t right,” recalls the OPM official, who has briefed previous transition teams. “All the inquiries were IT-focused.”
The depth of OPM’s changes became evident on January 28, when federal employees received an email from a new government-wide email system associated with the agency. This message offered eight months’ salary in exchange for their resignation. Following this, staff at agencies like the USDA and NOAA reported a flood of spam emails. The buyout offer is currently paused due to a temporary injunction from a U.S. district judge in response to a lawsuit from labor unions.
This sweeping resignation call was just the most visible sign of how the new administration is leveraging OPM’s resources to advance Trump’s agenda. In the past two weeks, administration officials have started placing Trump appointees in key technical roles within OPM—positions that Congress intended for career professionals, who typically have experience spanning multiple administrations. Musk’s associates are working to reshape this dynamic across nearly every federal agency, taking advantage of OPM’s central role in federal hiring practices.
Read more: Inside Elon Musk’s War on Washington
This week, Trump’s political appointees ousted OPM’s chief financial officer, Erica Roach, a long-serving official tasked with managing $1 trillion in deposits associated with the Earned Benefits Trust Funds, which cover retirement and health benefits for most federal employees. After being informed of her demotion, Roach decided to resign, according to an OPM source. Neither the White House nor OPM provided comments when requested.
Days earlier, the agency’s top technology officer, Melvin Brown, was reassigned, allowing Hogan, a Trump ally, to step into a position usually occupied by career civil servants. Charles Ezell, OPM’s acting director, aims to replicate this trend throughout the federal government. On Tuesday, a memo from Ezell to all cabinet departments and agencies initiated what could be a significant change in the appointment process for chief information officers (CIOs) across the federal government.
Currently, CIO positions in most agencies are designated as “career reserved,” meaning they can only be filled by existing members of the federal senior executive service. This practice has been upheld by multiple administrations, emphasizing the need for career appointees to maintain impartiality and public confidence in government operations.
However, OPM’s new leadership contends that CIO roles should not be limited to career officials, as their decisions heavily impact policy. “A modern agency CIO is not just an engineer or technician,” Ezell stated in his memo. “Their role encompasses shaping and implementing policy, as well as overseeing budgets, guided by the priorities of their Administration.” Ezell has set a deadline of February 14 for agencies to request that OPM eliminate the career federal service requirement for the CIO position. This administrative change would permit political appointees in Trump’s administration to consider candidates from outside the career federal workforce for these roles.
Placing chosen individuals in these pivotal IT positions throughout the government will provide Trump and his allies centralized access to extensive data concerning the federal workforce and government spending. This strategy appears deliberate, yet it raises alarms that the administration might neglect established safeguards aimed at protecting employee privacy and defending against foreign intelligence threats.
Recently, OPM’s upper management has been populated with Musk associates, including senior advisor Brian Bjelde, a former SpaceX human resources vice president; chief of staff Amanda Scales, who previously worked for Musk’s xAI; and senior advisor Anthony Armstrong, who contributed to Musk’s 2022 Twitter acquisition. Another significant player in these changes is Andrew Kloster, OPM’s new general counsel, who worked in the White House during Trump’s first term and was previously general counsel for Matt Gaetz.
Some senior career officials at OPM have already found themselves excluded from essential databases. There are growing concerns regarding political appointees accessing systems like the Enterprise Human Resources Integration without the typical protections designed to safeguard information confidentiality. This system holds sensitive data, including pay scales, tenure, Social Security numbers, birth dates, and residential addresses.
On January 31, Bjelde informed career supervisors at OPM that the aim was to reduce the agency’s workforce by 70%. A current OPM official expressed concerns that this drastic measure could significantly undermine the teams responsible for administering healthcare benefits and retirement planning for federal employees.
