--- title: "Trump Enacts Brutal Cuts at NASA" description: "NASA's workforce is undergoing brutal cuts under the Trump administration. Roughly ten percent of its workforce has already been culled." date: "2025-02-18" modified: "2025-02-18" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/trump-brutal-cuts-nasa" categories: - "Future Society" - "NASA" - "Space" tags: - "artemis" - "donald trump" - "elon musk" - "NASA" - "sls" --- # Trump Enacts Brutal Cuts at NASA ![NASA's workforce is undergoing brutal cuts under the Trump administration. Roughly ten percent of its workforce has already been culled.]() *\Image: NASA / Futurism\* NASA's workforce is undergoing brutal cuts under the Trump administration. As [*Ars Technica*'s Eric Berger reports](), around 750 NASA employees have accepted an offer to take "deferred resignation" later this year. The offer, inspired by White House advisor and multi-hyphenate billionaire Elon Musk's [mass cullings at Twitter](), was an effort to encourage federal employees to resign by February 12 in exchange for getting paid through September. And that's in addition to around 1,000 "probationary" employees at the space agency who will be fired outright by the Trump administration. In other words, given the almost 18,000 workers at the agency — roughly ten percent of its workforce — has already been culled. And while that's already a significant reduction, NASA is expected to roll out further cuts in the coming months, sources told Berger. Last week, Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency [rolled through NASA](), auditing the agency's spending. What changes the group will enact remains unclear. "They are going to look — similarly to what they’ve done at other agencies — at our payments," NASA's acting administrator Janet Petro [told reporters]() last week. Things were already looking pretty grim at NASA [following a chaotic few weeks]() of Trump's attacks against "diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility" initiatives, with the agency even [ordering staffers]() to remove all symbols of LGBTQI pride from their physical and digital workspaces. One NASA source [told Berger earlier this month]() that morale at the agency was "absurdly low." Now that Trump and Musk are employing what appears to be a corporate merger approach to [indiscriminately slash budgets]() and workforces, the agency could soon look dramatically different. Musk's SpaceX may also determine what shape the agency will take going forward, regardless of an [enormous conflict of interest](). NASA has long been doubling down on public-private partnerships, which may take on an even more important role. NASA's plans for reaching the surface of the Moon as part of its Artemis program could also soon look very different. Earlier this month, aerospace giant Boeing [warned hundreds of workers]() currently working on NASA's Artemis Moon rocket that they could be laid off in the upcoming months. The agency's Space Launch System (SLS), an expendable heavy-lift launch vehicle, has been under development for well over a decade and has cost NASA billions of dollars in budget overruns. Insider [sources told Berger]() in November that there's an "at least 50-50" chance that the rocket "will be canceled" under Trump. Musk has similarly [argued]() that the "Artemis architecture is extremely inefficient," accusing it of being a "jobs-maximizing program, not a results-maximizing program." Congress, however, is adamant that Artemis still makes sense in its current configuration. "The first thing we need to do is establish what’s in the best interest of the United States of America, and that is beating the Communist Party back to the lunar surface," representative Brian Babin (R-TX) told a conference last week, as [quoted by *Bloomberg*](). "The only way that’s going to happen at any time soon is with Artemis." Senator Ted Cruz also told the same conference that he plans to [reintroduce a bill]() that would forbid any changes to be made to NASA's Artemis program for at least a year. But now that SpaceX's CEO has assumed full control over the federal government's purse strings, the future of the Artemis program remains up in the air. Besides handing himself plush government contracts, Musk's space company could benefit in other ways from going through NASA's budget with a fine-toothed comb. "Any access could provide Mr. Musk’s company... with insider information that would benefit SpaceX at the expense of that company’s competitors and the taxpayers," representative Grace Meng (G-NY) [wrote in a letter]() addressed to Petro last week, calling a "visit" of DOGE at the agency "wildly inappropriate." **More on NASA:** *[Trump's Anti-DEI Agenda Could Put Astronauts in Real Danger]()* ## Author I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()