Despite saying publicly he wants the U.S. to be a leader in artificial intelligence, President Donald Trump forced out scores of recently hired AI experts in his first few months in office, according to a report Monday.
During President Joe Biden’s last year and a half in office, his administration convinced more than 200 AI experts to come work for the federal government — despite the more lucrative pay that typically can be had in the private sector — as part of an initiative called the National AI Talent Surge. But according to Time, most of them were quickly fired or forced out as part of the Trump administration’s slashing of federal jobs during his first 100 days in office.
Many of those firings were part of Elon Musk’s efforts as head of the Department of Government Efficiency. Others came as part of cuts to the U.S. Digital Service and the elimination of a technology office at the General Services Administration, both of which Musk oversaw.
The firings will lead to an enormous waste of government resources, according to officials who spoke with Time. Trump has signed multiple executive orders about furthering AI; earlier this month, he directed every federal agency to identify and hire more workers with AI experience. “Agencies should focus recruitment efforts on individuals that have demonstrated operational experience in designing, deploying, and scaling AI systems in high-impact environments,” Russell Vought, Trump’s Director of the Office of Management and Budget, wrote in a memo on April 3.
Many of those workers, it turns out, were already working for the federal government, which will now have to spend time and money finding a new cohort of AI experts.
Angelica Quirarte, a recruiter hired by the Biden administration to bring on AI talent, told Time she helped onboard about 250 AI experts in less than a year. She estimated that about 10% of those employees still work for the federal government. Quirarte resigned 23 days into the Trump presidency. “It was not an environment where you assumed good intent — you’re operating out of fear,” she told Time. “That’s not an environment where you can get good policy and good governing work done.”
Deirdre Mulligan, who directed the National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Office under Biden, predicted it would be hard to convince AI experts to come work for the Trump administration after the layoffs. “I’m sure that for many folks, they will think twice about whether or not they want to work in government,” she told the publication. “It’s really important to have stability, to have people’s expertise be treated with the level of respect it ought to be and to have people not be wondering from one day to the next whether they’re going to be employed.”