WASHINGTON, D.C. — Just months after enthusiastically pushing tens of thousands of government technologists out the door, the Trump administration announced Monday the creation of the United States Tech Force, a bold new initiative designed to urgently replace those workers with… basically the same workers, but on two-year contracts and vibes.
“We need you,” said Office of Personnel Management Director Scott Kupor, addressing a nation that had just watched entire federal tech teams get vaporized. “Specifically, we need you now that we’ve deleted everyone who already knew how the systems worked.”
The new program aims to recruit roughly 1,000 early-career software engineers, data scientists, and AI specialists to modernize federal agencies and help the U.S. “win the global AI race,” a race officials admitted they only entered after accidentally firing the starting lineup.
Participants will earn between $150,000 and $200,000 annually, which the administration confirmed is far more than the salaries of the employees whose jobs were eliminated earlier this year “for efficiency reasons.”
‘We Fired the Old Nerds Because These Nerds Are Way Better,’ Says Administration
Officials stressed that the Tech Force is not political, noting that its mission statement was generated entirely by artificial intelligence and focus-grouped by three venture capitalists in Patagonia vests.
About 20 technology companies have already signed on, including Palantir, Meta, Oracle, and Elon Musk’s xAI — which will reportedly help mentor recruits on advanced topics like “government efficiency,” “posting through it,” and “how to delete a federal agency with a single tweet.”
Musk’s involvement comes just months after he declared the government tech unit 18F had been “deleted,” a statement that federal officials later clarified was not metaphorical.
“That was more of a soft delete,” said one anonymous official. “This is more of a reinstall.”
DOGE Legacy Continues: Fire First, Recruit Later
The Tech Force follows the closure of multiple government technology groups, including the Social Security Administration’s Office of Transformation, the Defense Digital Service, and thousands of IRS tech positions.
Policy experts say the sudden shortage of tech talent may be linked to the administration’s earlier efforts to dramatically reduce the federal workforce.
“Part of the reason they now desperately need technologists,” said University of Michigan professor Donald Moynihan, “is because they aggressively drove out the technologists they already had.”
Administration officials responded by nodding thoughtfully and saying, “Exactly.”
No Conflicts of Interest, Just Coincidences
One unique feature of the program allows private-sector tech managers to take leaves of absence from their companies, work inside federal agencies, retain their stock holdings, access government systems, and then return to their old jobs afterward — a structure the administration insists raises zero conflict-of-interest concerns.
“We’ve run down all the issues,” Kupor said. “And by ‘run down,’ I mean we briefly jogged past them.”
Asked whether participants would be required to divest from stock holdings in companies doing business with the government, Kupor replied, “No, but they’ll promise to feel weird about it.”
‘The World’s Hardest Problems,’ Now With Onboarding
Kupor described the program as an unparalleled opportunity for young technologists.
“Come work on literally the world’s most complex and difficult problems,” he said. “Like rebuilding systems we dismantled last quarter, explaining basic procurement law to startup founders, and figuring out who still knows the IRS password.”
Despite skepticism, officials remain optimistic that the Tech Force will succeed where previous efforts failed.
“This time is different,” said one senior administration source. “This time we’re bringing in people who don’t understand the government yet, instead of people who understood it too much.”
At press time, the Tech Force website confirmed it was temporarily down due to a migration issue caused by laying off the team that used to maintain it.