Defense Secretary Hegseth pressed on Pentagon meeting with Musk

Originally published Defense Secretary Hegseth pressed on Pentagon meeting with Musk on March 25, 2025 03:45 by https://federalnewsnetwork.com/federal-newscast/2025/03/defense-secretary-hegseth-pressed-on-pentagon-meeting-with-musk/ at Federal News Network

• Congressman Adam Smith (D-Wash.), the Armed Services Committee ranking member, is asking Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth about what was briefed to billionaire Elon Musk during his visit to the Pentagon last Friday and if any classified matters were discussed. In a letter to the defense secretary, Smith said that while Hegseth met with Musk in a personal capacity rather than in his role with the Department of Government Efficiency, it is “difficult to separate Musk’s work at DOGE from his business interests.” Smith also said that the lack of transparency around Musk’s and DOGE’s review of the DoD’s programs and policies and the decisions being made by DOGE are deeply concerning. Smith asked Hegseth about how the department addressed potential conflicts of interests for Musk and if he’s planning to meet with other companies to discuss innovation.

  (Smith presses Hegseth on Musk meeting at Pentagon, questions DOGE’s transparency – Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.))

• For every dollar invested in an agency inspectors general office, the government saves $18. A new report from the Council of the IG on Integrity and Efficiency found that in fiscal 2024, 73 agency IGs helped save more than $71 billion. The savings are both in terms of real dollars, more than $18 billion recovered, and in cost avoidance. Some of that savings came from investigations into contract, grants or loan problems. IGs suspended or debarred more than 4,200 companies or individuals last year. CIGIE also said it also released last year the first ever report highlighting cybersecurity trends and challenges across the government.
• Federal employees will soon see new regulations defining what makes them suitable to work for the government. The White House is directing the Office of Personnel Management to broaden the reasons that employees can be found unfit for federal service. OPM already has the authority to find an employee unsuitable and remove them from their job. But a memo from the White House last week called for an expansion of the grounds for unsuitability. Kevin Owen, an attorney at Gilbert Employment Law, said he sees the White House’s directive as another effort toward politicizing the career federal workforce: “What happens if they start imposing suitability requirements that are restrictive of employees’ free speech or political donations, or charitable donations, or the fact that they’re married to a Green Card holder?” OPM is expected to soon update those suitability standards, but it’s unclear what those will be until OPM actually issues the new regulations.
• GSA will release details on FedRAMP 2025 today, and The General Services Administration will overhaul the cloud security program, known as FedRAMP, with a goal of making it leaner, less burdensome to contractors and agency customers and more reliant on automation. Federal News Network has learned that GSA’s new strategy for its Federal Risk Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) 2025 plan aims is to make sure “FedRAMP is not going to stand between cloud providers and their customers any longer.” FedRAMP 2025 will shift the program to focus only on creating and maintaining standards and policies and getting out of the business of approving cloud authorization packages, at least at the low and medium levels.
• The Pathways Program is seeing a declining number of early-career federal employees. The Government Accountability Office is reporting a 64% decrease in the number of Pathways hires over the last decade. To fix the problem, GAO said the Office of Personnel Management needs to collect more feedback from participants and then make changes to the program based on lessons learned. Without improvements to Pathways, GAO said it will become harder for agencies to recruit and retain younger employees which the government already struggles with. But after the Trump administration canceled part of the Pathways Program last month, some federal workforce experts said they don’t expect the numbers to improve anytime soon.
• Industry associations are urging Congress to reauthorize a 2015 law that allows agencies and private companies to exchange cybersecurity data. The Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act expires at the end of September. In a new letter to congressional leadership this week, the industry associations said the 2025 law has helped both agencies and companies respond to large-scale cyber attacks including the 2020 SolarWinds incident. It provides industry with civil and legal protections for sharing sensitive data related to a cyber incident. The industry groups said expiration of the law could have a chilling effect on public-private cyber collaboration.
• As the Defense Department works to comply with a judge’s order to reinstate probationary employees, many still await answers. A court filing showed the Defense Department had terminated 365 probationary employees since mid-February. So far, 65 workers have been reinstated. Some reinstated workers said they might not be “out of the woods” yet. The Defense Department plans to cut up to 60,000 civilian jobs and the removal of probationary employees is just one of several mechanisms to reduce the workforce. Some fired workers are still in limbo and a government-wide hiring freeze is delaying their path to new employment.
• House Democrats are seeking a new audit of the Department of Government Efficiency’s activities. Homeland Security Committee Democrats are asking the Government Accountability Office to review DOGE’s actions at the Department of Homeland Security. In a letter to Comptroller Gene Dodaro, the lawmakers request that GAO examine workforce reductions at DHS. They also want GAO to review DOGE employee access to sensitive DHS systems and data. They are asking GAO to identify which DHS contracts have been cancelled at the direction of DOGE.

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Originally published Defense Secretary Hegseth pressed on Pentagon meeting with Musk on March 25, 2025 03:45 by https://federalnewsnetwork.com/federal-newscast/2025/03/defense-secretary-hegseth-pressed-on-pentagon-meeting-with-musk/ at Federal News Network

Originally published Federal News Network