We lived in D.C. in 1973 and, at that time, the Washington Post ran a story about how hard it was to fire a government..

......employee. Their reporting used as an example one particular woman who was hired by an agency, made it through her probationary period and then just stopped working. She continued to come in every day, but just didn't do any work. The paper catalogued all the meetings, counseling sessions, letters, reprimands and ultimatums that the agency had to go through to finally fire her. If I remember correctly, it was a process that required two and a half years. I know that this was over 50 years ago, but I've got to wonder how it comes to be that Musk can just fire thousands of civil servants without more blow-back in the courts.

Side Note: This was The Washington Post that had just brought the world the Watergate scandal and had relieved us of Richard Nixon.