Hundreds of federal employees working on the United States’ nuclear weapons programmes were abruptly fired—only to have their dismissals reversed within 24 hours in a sudden policy shift by US President Donald Trump‘s administration.
The move has left workers in confusion and experts warning of national security risks.
On Thursday night, up to 350 employees of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) lost their jobs, according to three U.S. officials who spoke to the Associated Press. Some staff discovered they were fired only when they found themselves locked out of their offices on Friday morning. One of the hardest-hit sites was the Pantex Plant in Texas, which handles the assembly and disassembly of nuclear warheads. Around 30% of the employees dismissed from NNSA were from Pantex, a facility requiring the highest levels of security clearance.
The layoffs were part of a broader Department of Energy (DOE) staff purge, led by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an initiative associated with Elon Musk. Around 2,000 DOE employees were targeted in the cuts. “The DOGE people are coming in with absolutely no knowledge of what these departments are responsible for,” said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association. “They don’t seem to realise that it’s actually the department of nuclear weapons more than it is the Department of Energy.”
By Friday night, the acting NNSA director, Teresa Robbins, issued a memo reinstating all but 28 of the fired workers. “This letter serves as formal notification that the termination decision issued to you on Feb. 13, 2025, has been rescinded, effective immediately,” read the memo, obtained by the Associated Press. However, some employees could not be reached after being let go, and others were reconsidering their return due to the uncertainty created by DOGE’s handling of the situation.
The DOE first said fewer than 50 NNSA employees were fired, calling them “probationary” staff in administrative roles. However, reports showed many of them had key jobs in nuclear weapons maintenance, waste management, and site security. The affected sites include the Savannah River National Laboratory in South Carolina, the Hanford Nuclear Site in Washington—where 177 waste tanks store radioactive material—and the Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee, once a key Manhattan Project site.
US Representative Marcy Kaptur and Senator Patty Murray criticised the layoffs as “utterly callous and dangerous.” Experts fear such disruptions could weaken US nuclear security and embolden adversaries. “This is a pivotal moment,” said NNSA deputy division director Rob Plonski. “Cutting the federal workforce responsible for these functions may be seen as reckless at best and adversarily opportunistic at worst.”