Amanda Scales is an American businesswoman who is currently serving as the Chief of Staff of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.
Scales attended the University of California, Davis. [1] During college, she interned for the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC, while also teleworking for an internet startup based in Davis, CA. [2] [3] She joined the honors program at the College of Letters and Sciences in 2012. [4]
Scales previously held talent acquisition positions at tech companies, including Uber, before joining xAI, an Elon Musk company. [5]
In 2025, Scales was appointed to be Chief of Staff of the United States Office of Personnel Management. [6] Scales was reportedly installed to carry out President Trump and Elon Musk's directives to purge large numbers of staff from the federal government; agencies were directed to send lists of potentially fireable employees directly to her. [7] Scales is one of the only people with the authority to create exemptions for mass firings across federal agencies. [8]
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is an independent agency of the United States government that is primarily responsible for administering civilian foreign aid and development assistance. With a budget of over $50 billion, USAID is one of the largest official aid agencies in the world and accounts for more than half of all U.S. foreign assistance – the highest in the world in absolute dollar terms. USAID has missions in over 100 countries, primarily in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe.
Elon Reeve Musk is a businessman and United States special government employee known for his key roles in the automotive company Tesla, Inc. and the space company SpaceX. He is also known for his ownership of the technology company X Corp. and his role in the founding of the Boring Company, xAI, Neuralink, and OpenAI. Musk is the wealthiest individual in the world; as of January 2025, Forbes estimates his net worth to be US$426 billion. Musk has engaged in political activities in several countries, including as a vocal and financial supporter of U.S. president Donald Trump in the 2024 United States presidential election, and working with Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu on numerous occasions.
The United States Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is an independent agency of the United States government that manages the United States federal civil service. The agency provides federal human resources policy, oversight, and support, and tends to healthcare (FEHB), life insurance (FEGLI), and retirement benefits for federal government employees, retirees, and their dependents.
James Andrew Baker is a former American government official at the Department of Justice who served as general counsel for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and later served as deputy general counsel at Twitter, Inc. before being fired by Elon Musk in December 2022.
Donald John Trump is an American politician, media personality, and businessman serving as the 47th president of the United States since January 2025. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as the 45th president from 2017 to 2021.
Gary Scott Gensler is a former American government official and former investment banker who served as the chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) from 2021 to 2025. Gensler previously worked for Goldman Sachs and led the Biden–Harris transition's Federal Reserve, Banking, and Securities Regulators agency review team. Prior to his appointment, he was professor of Practice of Global Economics and Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management.
The Bureau of the Fiscal Service is a bureau of the U.S. Department of the Treasury. The Fiscal Service replaced the Bureau of the Public Debt and the Financial Management Service effective October 7, 2012, by directive of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. The merger of the two agencies and their data centers saved $415 million.
The United States DOGE Service (USDS), formerly the United States Digital Service, is a technology unit housed within the Executive Office of the President of the United States. It provides consultation services to federal agencies on information technology.
Elon Musk is the CEO or owner of multiple companies including Tesla, SpaceX, and X Corp., and has expressed many views on a wide variety of subjects, ranging from politics to science. With his contentious comments during the COVID-19 pandemic, his views have been described as becoming more right-wing over time, and are sometimes described as far-right. After his involvement in European politics by supporting far-right political parties in 2025, Musk's views and actions received criticism from some world leaders. Described initially as libertarian, he has declared himself as "politically moderate".
The Twitter Files are a series of releases of select internal Twitter, Inc. documents published from December 2022 through March 2023 on Twitter. CEO Elon Musk gave the documents to journalists Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss, Lee Fang, and authors Michael Shellenberger, David Zweig and Alex Berenson shortly after he acquired Twitter on October 27, 2022. Taibbi and Weiss coordinated the publication of the documents with Musk, releasing details of the files as a series of Twitter threads.
The second and current tenure of Donald Trump as the president of the United States began upon his inauguration on January 20, 2025. Trump, a Republican from New York City and resident of Florida, who previously served as president from 2017 to 2021, took office following his victory over Democratic incumbent vice president Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election after she replaced incumbent U.S. president Joe Biden as the Democratic Party's nominee. He instituted deportations, tariffs, and issued numerous executive orders.
Donald Trump assumed office as the 47th president of the United States on January 20, 2025. The president has the authority to nominate members of his cabinet to the United States Senate for confirmation under the Appointments Clause of the United States Constitution.
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), officially the U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization, is a temporary organization under the United States DOGE Service, formerly known as the United States Digital Service. Despite the name, DOGE is not a federal executive department, the creation of which would require the approval of the U.S. Congress.
Elon Musk, the wealthiest person in the world, has engaged in numerous political activities. Recently, his support has extended to right-leaning and far-right candidates and parties. In the 2024 United States presidential election, Musk established a political action committee (PAC) in support of Donald Trump for his campaign, making him the election's largest donor with over US$250 million. With Trump elected, Musk was appointed to co-run a new Department of Government Efficiency.
Troy E. Meink is an American government official who is the nominee to serve as Secretary of the Air Force. He previously served as the principal deputy director of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO).
"Fork in the Road" is the title and subject line of a memo sent on January 28, 2025 by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to all employees of the U.S. federal civil service. The memo, the first ever mass message to all roughly two million federal employees, offered a deferred resignation program for those unwilling to work under the second presidency of Donald Trump. The memo led to confusion about its authorship and legality, with several federal employee labor unions and political leaders advising employees not to accept the offer.
Executive Order 14169, titled Reevaluating and Realigning United States Foreign Aid, is an executive order signed by U.S. president Donald Trump hours after he took office 20 January 2025 ordering a 90-day pause on all U.S. foreign development assistance programs in order to conduct a review. On 24 January 2025, the U.S. State Department suspended all existing foreign aid programs, except for emergency food assistance and military aid to Egypt and Israel. New aid was also paused. On 28 January, exemptions were expanded to cover "humanitarian programs that provide life-saving medicine, medical services, food, shelter and subsistence assistance". The exemptions excluded "activities that involve abortions, family planning conferences, administrative costs [that are not reasonably used in life-saving aid], gender or DEI ideology programs, transgender surgeries, or other non-life saving assistance." Military assistance under the Department of Defense was not directly affected.
The 2025 United States federal hiring freeze is a policy instituted by a presidential memorandum signed by President Donald Trump on January 20, 2025, on the first day of his second administration immediately instituting a hiring freeze on federal employees. The same day as the presidential memorandum, the Office of Personnel Management and Office of Management and Budget issued a joint memorandum, titled "Federal Civilian Hiring Freeze Guidance," detailing to agencies ruled for implementation of the hiring freeze. The policy resembled a similar hiring freeze instituted in 2017, in the early days of the first Trump administration.
Gavin Kliger is an American software engineer, currently serving as special adviser to the director for information technology of the United States Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and within the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Edward Coristine is an American college student and software engineer appointed to the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).