As Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) work to reshape and even dismantle some federal agencies, a once-obscure Reddit channel is now a refuge for outraged government employees—and a thorn in the side of Musk’s supporters.
The subreddit, r/fednews, now has over 354,000 subscribers, up from just over 100,000 before President Donald Trump’s election victory last November, per the tracking tool reddStats.
Activity on r/fednews didn’t truly pick up, however, until the days after Jan. 28, when the Office of Personnel Management sent a “deferred resignation” offer to the vast majority of federal employees at Musk’s behest.
The day after Musk’s “Fork in the Road” email went out, the subreddit’s subscriber count grew nearly 30%. The memo galvanized its user base.
The channel now serves as a space for employees to share information and vent amid Musk and the Trump administration’s efforts to reduce headcount, root out any trace of DEI initiatives, and parse government payment systems.
“Hold the line” became the subreddit’s rallying cry after the deferred resignation notice. In a thread with 41,000 upvotes, one apparent federal employee argued that the “non-buyout” offer backfired against Musk.
“I'll be honest, before that email went out, I was looking for any way to get out of this fresh hell,” they wrote. “But now I am fired up to make these goons as frustrated as possible, RTO be damned. Hold the line!”
Similar posts soon followed. A comic illustration showing federal workers standing up to an infantile Trump garnered 50,000 upvotes.
“Hold the line!” the poster echoed. “We made an oath to protect the constitution from threats, both foreign and domestic.”
But r/fednews didn’t fill up with memes and inspirational messages alone. Government workers also used the platform to share news stories about DOGE and updates from their various agencies.
In one popular post from last week, a now-verified image shows someone painting over a wall of “core values” at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia.
“They just fired all agents who had worked January 6 cases,” one commenter shared. “I know one personally.”
The subreddit’s notoriety appears to be bringing new challenges for moderators and users alike. In what is now the top post in the history of the 12-year-old Reddit channel, a purported employee shared that their supervisor “told us to stop posting on Reddit.”
“We just had a meeting about employees posting memos and meeting topics on Reddit and were told to stop ‘leaking’ information,” they said. “DONT STOP, the people deserve to know the information.”
Moderators, meanwhile, warned the community after the deferred resignation offer about the potential for disinformation.
“This subreddit is under attack from foreign and domestic threat actors,” one moderator wrote. “Every high-profile political subreddit will be a target. Use your critical thinking and slam your report button for weird stuff to help keep bad actors on the radar.”
The moderators, who declined to comment on this story, since brought in a “surge force” of supplementary moderators, according to a note on the channel, which also reaffirmed that the “community remains safely in the hands of current and former federal employees.”
The Daily Dot could not identify any obvious instances of disinformation designed to undermine the subreddit, but users are no longer able to sort posts by “controversial,” making it difficult to stumble on any pro-DOGE content.
The MAGA crowd has at least been lurking in the background, however.
“The Trump admin should start seizing Reddit servers and finding out who is posting on r/fednews about sabotaging the Trump administration,” one popular pro-Trump account wrote on X. “Put these people in jail.”
No person has been more diligently tracking the r/fednews goings-on than the conservative X account Reddit Lies, which posts screenshots of perceived left-wing content from Reddit.
The account has posted about the subreddit at least 30 times since Jan. 26, screenshotting calls to “sabotage Trump” and “quiet quit,” and highlighting perceived threats against the recently unmasked DOGE employees working for Musk.
In their most viewed post about the subject, Reddit Lies circulated an unsourced graph purporting to show an influx of activity on r/fednews during work hours. The post, which did not include any information about the data sample, was catnip to right-wing followers who dislike federal bureaucrats.
“Perhaps it should be blocked on the routers,” one reply suggested. “Maybe we have to take their phone like children in schools. Seems they act just like them.”
The purveyor of Reddit Lies did not respond to a request for comment.
Despite the pushback from more conservative corners of the internet, r/fednews remains active. Users have posted several dozen threads already today, including questions about transitioning into the private sector, the rights of Schedule A workers, and the status of probationary employees.
As a winter storm hit the East Coast Thursday morning, one federal employee commented on the irony of getting administrative leave for snow on the first day of their agency’s return-to-office policy.
“Excellent use of government efficiency. Cancelled all telework agreements and then office closed due to a winter storm,” they wrote. “Pure stroke of genius and efficiency from the department of government efficiency.”
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