The Office of Personnel Management (OPM), located near the White House, manages personnel data for millions of federal employees and applicants. While seemingly mundane, its extensive records and access to employee contact information make it a powerful entity.
Recent actions by the Trump administration and Elon Musk’s associates have focused on leveraging OPM’s data in potentially questionable ways. The OPM headquarters is central to these efforts.
OPM career officials raised concerns during transition meetings with incoming Trump administration officials. These meetings typically involve transferring details about ongoing projects and organizational structure. However, the Trump team showed unusual interest in OPM’s computer systems.
According to an OPM official, Greg Hogan, the new chief information officer, intensely questioned the agency’s computer systems, access procedures, security measures, and patch installation processes. This raised significant red flags for the official, who had participated in previous transition briefings.
On January 28th, most federal employees received an email from a new government-wide email system, offering eight months’ pay in exchange for resignation. Following this, agencies like USDA and NOAA reported a surge in spam emails. This buyout offer is currently stalled due to a temporary injunction from a U.S. district judge, following a lawsuit by labor unions.
This mass resignation request was just one example of the administration using OPM’s resources to advance its agenda. The administration has installed Trump appointees into key technical roles at OPM, roles typically filled by career officials. Musk’s allies are pursuing similar changes across various agencies, using OPM’s central hiring function to achieve this.
This week, OPM’s chief financial officer, Erica Roach, a career official managing trillions of dollars in employee benefit funds, was ousted and subsequently resigned. The White House and OPM did not respond to requests for comment.
A few days earlier, the agency’s top technology officer, Melvin Brown, was reassigned, enabling Hogan, a Trump ally, to assume the role. Charles Ezell, OPM’s acting director, plans to replicate this pattern across the federal government. He sent a memo to all cabinet departments and agencies, initiating a potential overhaul of federal tech officer hiring practices.
Currently, many agency CIO positions are “career reserved,” meaning they must be filled from within the federal government’s senior executive service. This practice has been maintained by multiple administrations to ensure impartiality and public trust.
However, OPM’s new leadership argues that CIOs should not be limited to career officials because their decisions impact policy. Ezell stated that CIOs shape policy and allocate budgets based on administration priorities, not solely technical tasks. Agencies have until February 14th to request that OPM remove the career service requirement for CIO roles.
Placing hand-picked candidates in these IT roles will provide the Trump White House with increased access to federal workforce and spending data. However, this raises concerns about potential neglect of employee privacy safeguards and vulnerability to foreign intelligence hacking.
OPM’s senior leadership now includes Musk allies, such as senior advisor Brian Bjelde (formerly of SpaceX), chief of staff Amanda Scales (formerly of xAI), senior advisor Anthony Armstrong (involved in Musk’s Twitter acquisition), and general counsel Andrew Kloster (formerly with the White House and Matt Gaetz).
Some senior OPM career officials have been locked out of key databases. There are concerns that political appointees have unauthorized access to sensitive systems, including the Enterprise Human Resources Integration system, which contains personal information like pay grades, Social Security numbers, and addresses.
On January 31st, Bjelde reportedly stated a goal of cutting 70% of the agency’s staff, a move that could severely impact teams responsible for federal employee healthcare and retirement benefits.