DOGE and President Musk are realizing that it is not so easy to replace nuclear energy specialists with a bunch of robots and 20 year old incels. I guess there IS something valuable in education and experience. Bloomberg is reporting that the Energy Department is "seeking to bring back nuclear energy specialists after abruptly telling hundreds of workers that their jobs were eliminated."
These employees are "responsible for designing and maintaining the nation’s cache of nuclear weapons at the National Nuclear Safety Administration", but were deemed expendable by DOGE. About 300-400 were let go, but that hasty decision was quickly reversed on Friday. They are now seeking to rehire the workers because "they deal with sensitive national security secrets."
To be clear, people who work in these roles usually require the highest level of security clearance, which can take over a year and a half to obtain during a normally staffed and well functioning administration. It is unclear how much of a delay DOGE would cause to any background check process.
It is unclear how many of the fired specialists will even want to come back. The former NNSA administrator, Jill Hruby, told Bloomberg: “These people are likely never going to come back and work for the government. We’ve had a very active program requiring an increase to our staff so the indiscriminate layoffs of people will be really difficult for the coming years.”
These firings are a perfect example of the chaos DOGE and President Musk have unleashed on our country - and the world. And this is not the first 180 degree turnaround DOGE has had to make after realizing they made a terrible mistake in firings. Earlier this week they fired a bunch of people at the Small Business Administration, only to tell them that they weren't being fired, and THEN telling them that they were actually being fired. Fired. Not fired. SIKE, you are fired. For real this time. WHAT?
For those unaware, NNSA is a smaller department in the Energy Department. They are "responsible for producing and dismantling nuclear weapons, providing the Navy with nuclear reactors for submarines and responding to radiological emergencies." The also "plays a role a key role in counter-terrorism, transporting nuclear weapons around the country and responding to nuclear incidents around the world." Kind of important work. They have also been researching how AI can be used to make nuclear bombs. Yikes.
God help us all if these people do not come back. I do not trust anyone Trump would install and trust President Musk even less.
