WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump's administration began a mass firing of federal workers Thursday. Office of Personnel Management officials met with agency leaders and advised them to dismiss probationary employees, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The Office of Personnel Management met with agencies across the federal government on Thursday and directed them to fire all employees still on probation a year or more after being hired. Federal employees can be on probation from one to two years after being hired.

Mass firings at multiple U.S. government agencies have begun as President Donald Trump and Tesla CEO Elon Musk accelerate their purge of America's federal bureaucracy, union sources and employees familiar with the layoffs told Reuters on Thursday.

Elon Musk called on Thursday for the United States to “delete entire agencies” from the federal government as part of his push under President Donald Trump to radically cut spending and restructure its priorities.

Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency has targeted federal agencies like USAID, CFPB, and NOAA to reduce government spending.

Musk, Trump say they have a mandate to slash the size of the federal government, but the Democratic AGs argue Congress has ceded too much power.

DOGE acknowledged that the work was incomplete but said it was part of an “enormous manual effort consolidating 16,000+ offices.”

Two federal judges will consider on Friday whether Elon Musk's government cost-cutting team known as DOGE will have access to Treasury Department payment systems and potentially sensitive data at U.S.