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Efforts to gut the federal workforce by Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency significantly derailed operations at a Pentagon tech team with a key U.S. military role, according to materials reviewed by The Intercept.
Beginning nearly a year ago, DOGE embarked on an aggressive and legally dubious effort to gut the administrative state by unilaterally shuttering programs, pushing out personnel, and terminating contracts. Its effort to downsize the government leaned on the Office of Personnel Management’s “Deferred Resignation Program,” essentially a voluntary buyout plan that offered nearly 2 million federal employees the option of entering administrative leave rather than working under the second Trump administration. In the ensuing HR chaos, the Washington Post reported that “the employees who have resigned amount to about 6.7 percent of the government’s civilian workforce of 2.3 million people.”
Defenders of DOGE, including Musk, have claimed the project solely ferreted out fraud, waste, and abuse. But according to a December 2025 contracting memo from the Defense Information Systems Agency, DOGE’s tactics caused major problems at the Pentagon’s IT office — which is core to the operation of the U.S. military.
The memo describes how DISA’s Command, Control, Communications, and Computers Enterprise Directorate, known as J6, was hobbled by DOGE cuts to such an extent that it was unable to obtain necessary software. This unit is responsible for maintaining secure channels that keep the Pentagon connected to military assets around the world, including nuclear capabilities.
“During calendar year 2025, the DISA/J6 program office has been unexpectedly and significantly impacted by Government programs that incentivized personnel separation or extended periods of leave,” the memo reads, “e.g., Deferred Resignation Program, Voluntary Early Retirement Authority, Voluntary Separation Incentive Payments, Paid Parental Leave.”
A second DISA memo notes that the Deferred Resignation Program resulted in the departure of an officer responsible for an important Pentagon cloud-computing contract, resulting in that contract expiring entirely. The DOGE-induced staffing shortage resulted in a situation, according to the memo, where DISA’s systems faced “extreme risk for loss of service” across the Department of Defense.
While DISA operates behind the scenes, its globe-spanning networks are critical to the armed forces, explained DISA J6’s then-director Sharon Woods in a Pentagon-produced June 2025 interview: “Command, Control, Communications, and Computers — it is what underlies everything and the department’s ability to communicate with itself.” Asked what would happen on a day where DISA J6 couldn’t operate, Woods replied, “In my mind, it cripples the Department [of Defense]… This is really a mission where failure is not an option.”
DISA is not the only arm of the Pentagon hindered by Musk’s cuts. Stars and Stripes reported last week that Fort Greely, an intercontinental ballistic missile interception facility in Alaska, was struggling to feed its personnel because of “the government’s loss of essential civilian positions due to the Deferred Resignation Program (DRP), retirements and the federal hiring freeze.”
A recent procurement memo from the U.S. military academy at West Point, New York, reviewed by The Intercept stated the school was similarly facing a “potential disruption in food service operations resulting from the Government’s loss of 26 positions due to the Deferred Resignation Program (DRP), retirements, and the hiring freeze.”
At a May 2025 conference hosted by U.S. Army Mission Installation Contracting Command, an official acknowledged that “We have been cut significantly” due to the Deferred Resignation Program.
DISA did not respond to a request for comment.
