"Musk Cuts DOGE Spending... Halts Identification of US Military Remains from Korean War"

U.S. Department of Government Efficiency Slashes Federal Spending
Mass Layoffs and Suspension of Government Purchase Cards
"Identification of Korean War and Other Veterans Halted"

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, who is leading the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), is undertaking a massive federal government spending cut, and it has been reported that the identification work of the remains of missing U.S. soldiers who participated in the Korean War has also been halted. On the 10th (local time), The Washington Post (WP) reported, "Recently, payments to private investigators who were tracking and investigating the families and relatives of long-missing U.S. soldiers at the request of the U.S. Army have been stopped."

U.S. President Donald Trump and Tesla CEO Elon Musk are sitting in a Tesla vehicle on the South Lawn of the White House on the 11th (local time). Photo by AP Yonhap News

Accordingly, the identification work of the remains of soldiers who participated in the Korean War, Vietnam War, and World War II has been completely suspended. The identification of veterans' remains is conducted by finding people who are blood relatives of the missing soldiers, performing DNA tests, and then comparing these with the DNA from the remains. It is known that without private investigators, the procedure cannot proceed.

DOGE has been laying off a large number of federal employees since mid-February to reduce federal government spending. It was reported that about 10,000 federal employees left their jobs within days after an order was issued to dismiss probationary employees with less than one year of service. Musk also sent an email titled "What did you do last week?" to federal employees through the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). The email requested a summary of five accomplishments from the previous week, and if employees did not respond by the deadline, it was considered a resignation, which sparked controversy.

DOGE also cut costs by effectively suspending government purchase cards for many agencies by lowering the purchase limit to $1 (approximately 1,458 KRW). As of the 5th, the suspended government purchase cards amounted to 146,000 cards across 16 agencies. Regarding this, Musk claimed, "The number of government purchase cards is still nearly twice the number of federal employees. There are many suspicious expenditures." It is reported that this incident was also affected by DOGE's suspension of government purchase card usage. WP pointed out, "Operations in many agencies are being paralyzed or halted."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.