As DOGE staffers dismantle the federal workforce, they’re following Elon Musk’s ethos of moving fast and breaking things. But even DOGE workers need to slow down and sleep — and they’re increasingly doing so in a federal office building, an arrangement that ethics experts said could break longstanding agency rules.
At the General Services Administration’s towering federal office building in downtown Washington, workers have set up at least four separate rooms on the 6th floor for sleeping, complete with beds from IKEA, lamps, and dressers, according to two career GSA employees.
The Unusual Sleeping Setup
These rooms share office space with conference rooms and are accessible only with high-security clearances, said the workers, who were granted anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly.
The agency is also considering spending about $25,000 to install a washer and dryer on the building’s 6th floor, according to a Feb. 25 invoice obtained by POLITICO. There is also a child’s play area decorated with a stuffed animal and toys, according to a photo of the room shared with POLITICO.
“People are definitely … sleeping there,” said one GSA staffer.
It remains unclear exactly how often the rooms are in use or for what length of time.
Details of the arrangements at GSA — a federal building on 18th and F Street NW where more than 1,000 staffers work — offer a window into the lifestyle DOGE workers are creating, even as they work to cut staff and slash spending across the federal government.
Musk himself has embraced the idea of sleeping and even living at work. The tech billionaire revealed at an investment conference in New York last year that Tesla factories in California and Nevada served as his “primary residences” for three years. Musk said he crashed on couches and underneath his desk on the factory floor to motivate staff. And as the head of X, formerly Twitter, Musk had workers sleeping in the social media company’s offices, too.
Now, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO — and Trump’s top adviser — is reportedly hunkering down at work again, this time at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, just steps away from the White House.
A spokesperson for the GSA said that “government employees are working incredibly hard and long hours to help reduce the federal deficit and ensure an effective government.”
“Any purchases the agency has made followed all appropriate laws and regulations,” the spokesperson said. “In accordance with the Sleeping in Federal Buildings bulletin, specific instances of an employee sleeping at the 1800F building were expressly authorized by an agency official.”
Ethics experts say the arrangements are murky, unprecedented in D.C., and raise questions about DOGE’s intentions. A bulletin GSA released in 2019 states that sleeping in agency offices is prohibited “except when expressly authorized by an agency official.”
But Donald Sherman, executive director and chief counsel at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a watchdog group, said that guidance only allows workers to sleep in a federal building if “directed by a supervisor,” if it’s necessary, there’s an emergency or there is “imminent danger to human life or property, where persons are directed to shelter-in-place.”
“This administration is firing career workers, federal employees, eviscerating civil service protections for government employees, but is also so desperate for work that it is allowing other government employees to, or directing other government employees, to sleep at work,” he said. “That doesn’t make sense.”
Jeff Nesbit, whose career as a political and career federal staffer spanned both Republican and Democratic administrations, said the situation is dumbfounding.
“It’s exceedingly odd,” said Nesbit. “I’ve run the public affairs offices of five different Cabinet departments or agencies under four different presidents, two Republicans and two Democrats. I have never heard of any such thing. I can’t even imagine what the purpose is, other than to terrorize the civilian workforce.”
The situation has left federal workers and some members of Congress confused and alarmed.
Democratic Rep. Suhas Subramanyam, a member of the House Oversight Committee, has been pushing for more information after learning from an alarmed constituent last month at a town hall in Virginia that DOGE staffers were reportedly sleeping in federal buildings, though the constituent’s claims have not been confirmed.
“One of Musk’s top lieutenants and his wife and young child have shacked up on the 6th floor of our agency and they are living there,” said the person at the Feb. 2 town hall, who was not publicly identified. “The hallway has been blocked off with a special access list of people who can’t get back here.”
Subramanyam said he’s raised the issue at an Oversight hearing and on the House floor, floated legislation to get more transparency around DOGE, and even created a TikTok video showing him attempting — and failing — to get into federal buildings with a pillow and blanket.
“This is the problem with DOGE,” he continued. “There’s very little transparency and accountability, and they kind of just do whatever they want without needing to even identify themselves, much less explain why they’re doing things, like staying in federal buildings.”
