“When there are great tools out there, GSA’s job is to procure them, not make mediocre replacements,” a colleague added.
“Did you use this AI to organize the [reduction in force]?” asked another federal worker.
“When will the Adobe Pro be given back to us?” said another. “This is a critical program that we use daily. Please give this back or at least a date it will be back.”
Employees also pushed back against the return-to-office mandate. “How does [return to office] increase collaboration when none of our clients, contractors, or people on our [integrated product teams] are going to be in the same office?” a GSA worker asked. “We’ll still be conducting all work over email or Google meetings.”
One employee asked Ehikian who the DOGE team at GSA actually is. “There is no DOGE team at GSA,” Ehikian responded, according to two employees with direct knowledge of the events. Employees, many of whom have seen DOGE staff at GSA, didn’t buy it. “Like we didn’t notice a bunch of young kids working behind a secure area on the 6th floor,” one employee told WIRED. Luke Farritor, a young former SpaceX intern who has worked at DOGE since the organization’s earliest days, was seen wearing sunglasses inside the GSA office in recent weeks, as was Ethan Shaotran, another young DOGE worker who recently served as president of the Harvard mountaineering club. A GSA employee described Shaotran as “grinning in a blazer and T-shirt.”
GSA did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent by WIRED.
During the meeting, Ehikian showed off a slide detailing GSA’s goals—right-sizing, streamline operations, deregulation, and IT innovation—alongside current cost-savings. “Overall costs avoided” were listed at $1.84 billion. The number of employees using generative AI tools built by GSA was listed at 1,383. The number of hours saved from automations was said to be 178,352. Ehikian also pointed out that the agency has canceled or reduced 35,354 credit cards used by government workers and terminated 683 leases. (WIRED cannot confirm any of these statistics. DOGE has been known to share misleading and inaccurate statistics regarding its cost saving efforts.)
“Any efficiency calculation needs a denominator,” a GSA employee wrote in the chat. “Cuts can reduce expenses, but they can also reduce the value delivered to the American public. How is that captured in the scorecard?”
In a slide titled “The Road Ahead,” Ehikian laid out his vision for the future. “Optmize federal real estate portfolio,” read one pillar. “Centralize procurement,” read another. Sub categories included “reduce compliance burden to increase competition,” “centralize our data to be accessible across teams,” and “Optimize GSA’s cloud and software spending.”
Online, employees seemed leery. “So, is Stephen going to restrict himself from working on any federal contracts after his term as GSA administrator, especially with regard to AI and IT software?” asked one employee in the chat. There was no answer.