In a stunning reversal, the Trump administration has halted the abrupt firings of hundreds of federal employees working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, leaving workers confused and experts warning of dangerous instability in the country’s nuclear security.
According to three U.S. officials who spoke with The Associated Press, up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) were suddenly let go late Thursday. Some lost access to their work emails before they were even informed of their termination, and many only realized they were fired when they were unable to enter their offices Friday morning.
Nuclear Security Hit Hardest
AP reported that one of the locations was the Pantex Plant in Amarillo. Pantex workers play a crucial role in reassembling nuclear warheads—one of the most sensitive and high-security jobs in the country’s nuclear enterprise. These employees hold some of the highest security clearances in the federal government.
High Plains Pundit was unable to independently verify with Pantex the exact number or if any employees were actually let go at the plant. We will update as soon as Pantex officials respond to our request for comment.
The layoffs were part of a broader effort led by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which had targeted around 2,000 Department of Energy employees for cuts. Critics argue the DOGE team lacks the necessary expertise to understand the department’s responsibilities.
“The DOGE people are coming in with absolutely no knowledge of what these departments are responsible for,” said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association. “They don’t seem to realize that it’s actually the department of nuclear weapons more than it is the Department of Energy.”
Sudden Reversal Leaves Workers in Limbo
By late Friday night, the NNSA’s acting director, Teresa Robbins, issued a memo rescinding the termination of all but 28 of the fired employees.
“This letter serves as formal notification that the termination decision issued to you on Feb. 13, 2025, has been rescinded, effective immediately,” the memo stated.
The official explanation from the Department of Energy claimed fewer than 50 NNSA employees had been fired and described them as “probationary employees” in administrative and clerical roles. However, accounts from multiple officials contradict that claim, confirming that many of the affected employees worked in critical nuclear security roles.
The abrupt layoffs triggered outrage among national security experts and lawmakers. Rob Plonski, a deputy division director at NNSA, took to LinkedIn to warn of the risks.
“This is a pivotal moment,” he wrote. “We must decide whether we are truly committed to leading on the world stage or if we are content with undermining the very systems that secure our nation’s future. Cutting the federal workforce responsible for these functions may be seen as reckless at best and adversarily opportunistic at worst.”
Fallout from the Firings
The chaos surrounding the firings has already had lasting consequences. Some fired employees remain unreachable, and others are reconsidering whether to return, given the uncertainty created by DOGE’s actions. Many of these workers have spent their entire careers in the nuclear security field, and their departures could accelerate the loss of institutional knowledge at a time when the U.S. is in the midst of a massive $750 billion nuclear weapons modernization effort.
The impact isn’t limited to nuclear weapons programs. Many of the laid-off employees worked at major nuclear waste sites, overseeing critical environmental safety efforts. These include:
The Savannah River National Laboratory in South Carolina, which manages nuclear waste and security issues.
The Hanford Nuclear Site in Washington state, where workers oversee the containment of 177 high-level radioactive waste tanks.
The Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee, a highly contaminated Superfund site tied to the Manhattan Project.
U.S. lawmakers, including Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), condemned the firings as “utterly callous and dangerous.”
Nuclear safety experts are also alarmed. Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists, warned that the move could send a dangerous message to adversaries.
“I think the signal to U.S. adversaries is pretty clear: throw a monkey wrench in the whole national security apparatus and cause disarray,” he said. “That can only benefit the adversaries of this country.”
With America’s nuclear security workforce already in transition—60% of employees at nuclear labs have been hired in the last five years—this disruption has created instability at a time when consistency and expertise are needed most.
