1 federal agency welcomes the chance to ‘clean house’

Billionaire Elon Musk and former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy have been tasked by President-elect Donald Trump to go through the federal government and cut down on waste.

Musk, the Tesla and SpaceX executive who bought Twitter, got rid of a significant percentage of its staff and is watching it still perform in the marketplace, once estimated he could reduce federal spending by $2 trillion.

Most of the bureaucratic reaction has been fear and loathing so far, from entrenched federal payroll recipients who want no more work and no less pay.

But not at NASA.

A report at Daily Mail explains staff members there “are calling on Elon Musk to ‘clean house.'”

It’s partly because of the millions of taxpayer dollars that have gushed through the agency on the way to racist “diversity, equity and inclusion” programs.

“A former NASA employee told DailyMail.com that NASA’s DEI is ‘destroying America’s ability to compete with China in space because the Biden-Harris administration will only fund programs that feature it.'”

In the overall scheme of federal spending, NASA’s role is less than many other agencies, with a budget of some $20 billion.

But large parts of that money now are going, according to spending reports during the Biden-Harris administration, “to universities and consulting firms to support ‘environmental justice’ and initiatives that ’embrace greater diversity and inclusive practices.'”

For instance, LMI Consulting got $2 million in 2023 to “incorporate and deeply engrain diversity, inclusion, equity and accessibility in the culture and business.”

Booz\ Allen Hamilton took $3 million for NASA’s “office of diversity and equal opportunity,” and another $7 million last month went for “minority-serving institutions.”

The report said that’s even as there are budget shortfalls for the agency’s main mission.

Software engineer Kyle Sorensen told he hopes Musk will “clean house.”

Its Jet Propulsion Laboratory laid off 325 employees from its workforce recently, on top of 535 let go months back.

NASA also gave a private organization $900,000 for “increasing diversity and inclusion in the leadership of completed space missions by establishing an ad hoc committee to recommend actions to increase diversity, inclusion, equity and accessibility in the leadership of space mission proposals.”

“DailyMail.com uncovered more DEI grants worth missions that had not published in the spending report,” the report said.

Another former employee told the publication, “NASA JPL will lay off almost a thousand workers this year to make budget space for a plethora of ridiculous word salad DEI and environmental programs which contribute nothing to actual space exploration. DEI is a full employment program for people with otherwise useless degrees.”