Stephanie Holmes, who had been the Interior Department’s chief human capital officer, and Katrine Trampe, an advisor to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, are among several DOGE members exiting the federal government recently.

Stephanie Holmes, who had been the Interior Department’s chief human capital officer, and Katrine Trampe, an advisor to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, are among several DOGE members exiting the federal government recently. STR / NurPhoto / Getty Images

DOGE and other day 1 Trump appointees head for the exits at multiple agencies

The Interior Department and General Services Administration are seeing significant turnover in the leadership ranks.

Several members of billionaire Elon Musk’s government efficiency team at the Interior Department are leaving the agency, joining other Musk associates and early President Trump appointees exiting agencies elsewhere in government. 

Stephanie Holmes, who had been acting as the Interior’s chief human capital officer, and Katrine Trampe, an advisor to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, are both leaving the department, an agency spokesperson confirmed. 

"Stephanie and Katrine have demonstrated an unwavering dedication to efficiency that paved the way for a new era of quality and productivity at Interior,” the spokesperson said in a statement. They didn’t provide specifics on the timing of their departures. “We are deeply appreciative of their valuable contributions to the Department and for their commitment to improving the lives of the American people."

Tyler Hassen, another previous associate of the Department of Government Efficiency, is also leaving the agency Aug. 1, the New York Times reported Friday. He had been the department’s acting assistant secretary of policy, management and budget. 

During their tenure, Holmes and Trampe had pushed for, and eventually got, high-level access to a personnel and payroll system run out of Interior as one of a few centralized systems the government uses to pay federal employees. Several high-ranking tech, cybersecurity and legal leaders at the department were placed on administrative leave and under investigation at the time, after they raised concerns about giving that level of access to DOGE.

The departure of several DOGE affiliates at Interior comes in the wake of an ongoing schism between President Donald Trump and Musk, who stepped away from the controversial effort in June. Since the establishment of DOGE on Trump’s first day back in office, associates of the effort have fanned across agencies to cut budgets and staff.

More recently, though, Holmes, Trampe and Hassen aren’t the only ones to be leaving DOGE. 

The trio’s retreat from Interior follows the replacement of Stephen Ehikian as the acting head at the General Services Administration, which has been a DOGE stronghold. Ehikian’s replacement came after longtime Musk associate Steve Davis reportedly tried to install Ehikian as a new leader of DOGE alongside another GSA executive and a senior advisor at the Office of Personnel Management.

Michael Rigas, a deputy secretary at the State Department who is now the acting head of GSA, entered the agency with around 10 officials and strategically placed them around the agency in areas where DOGE members had held the most influence, according to an employee briefed on the matter. 

Frank Schuler, who entered government as a DOGE associate and later became the acting associate administrator in the Office of Congressional and Intergovernmental Affairs, and Michael Peters, an early appointee who has served as commissioner of the Public Buildings Service, also both resigned on Tuesday, according to multiple employees familiar with the moves. 

GSA did not respond to an inquiry into the cause of their resignations, but their departures demonstrate ongoing leadership shakeup at the agency. Ehikian and Josh Gruenbaum, commissioner of the Federal Acquisition Service, have not been seen in the office in recent days, an employee said. 

Wired reported last week that many DOGE employees have vacated their GSA offices, leaving a trail of bedding and children’s toys in their wake. 

At Interior, Burgum had tapped Hassen, a former oil executive, to lead a reorganization of the department, which is in the midst of consolidating IT, communications, finance, human resources and contracting into the central department, as opposed to having different components like the National Park Service have their own staff for those services. 

That consolidation appears to be ongoing. 

In the IT realm, for example, the organizational chart for the post-consolidation tech shop is still being finalized, meaning that IT staff technically moved to new, headquarters positions in May, but are still in their old jobs as Interior hammers out details, like how funding will work and how Interior will train employees to do work for new parts of the department they didn’t previously interact with, two employees told Government Executive.

Interior employees’ reaction to the departure of the architect of that reorganization and other DOGE staff has been mixed, one said. The exits were largely celebrated, according to multiple employees through the department, though staff remain apprehensive about what will come next. 

“People are happy as they were not well liked,” one staffer told Government Executive about the mood inside the department. “Some people [are] thinking things will improve. Others afraid they have ‘set everything in motion and leaving the burning wreckage behind.’”

Interior had planned widespread layoffs just days before a federal court blocked agencies across government from implementing them. 

The Supreme Court earlier this month lifted that injunction, but Interior’s plans remain under wraps. The department notified employees last week it had updated its “competitive areas,” the groupings of employees agencies must create before engaging in RIFs. A recent court filing unveiled that Interior had several reduction-in-force actions planned throughout the department as of April, before the original court order took effect. 

Employees have yet to receive any update on the status of layoffs since the Supreme Court ruling came down.

GSA has also implemented layoffs at several of its divisions. More cuts were expected before the court injunction took place. Rigas took the reins at the agency after ushering through widespread RIFs at the State Department.

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Eric Katz: ekatz@govexec.com, Signal: erickatz.28

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