One of the things that I'm hoping to do a better job on is getting people from the private sector-who've been in the private sector their whole career-who also spend a couple years in government at some point in their career, and learn something.
The Vermont Labor Relations Board has ordered that Gov. Phil Scott's administration 'rescind' a controversial requirement that state employees return to their physical offices three days per week. The board stated that the state has 'refused to bargain in good faith and interfered with employees' exercise of rights' in requiring in-person work.
At least 125 employees, which is more than 20% of the company's workforce, were let go as Underdog shifts away from some of its traditional offerings and leans more heavily into prediction markets. Teams in fraud operations, marketing, customer support, and product were among those affected.
"We greatly appreciate Elon's generous offer. This would pose great legal challenges due to his involvement with federal government contracts. The fastest way to ensure TSA employees and all DHS employees get paid is for Democrats to fund the Department of Homeland Security."
On Wednesday, the government reported that U.S. employers added a surprisingly strong 130,000 jobs in January and the unemployment rate fell to a still-low 4.3% from 4.4%. However, government revisions cut 2024-2025 U.S. payrolls by hundreds of thousands. That reduced the number of jobs created last year to just 181,000, a third of the previously reported 584,000 and the weakest since the pandemic year of 2020.
Out of about 780,000 civilians at the Department of War, formerly the Department of Defense, approximately 62,000, or 8%, did not return to in-person work as of July 31, 2025, according to a U.S. Government Accountability Office report. War department officials told the government watchdog that 45,000, or 6%, have deferred resignation status or other exemptions, and 17,000, or 2%, have wavers. GAO released the report, "Civilian Telework and Remote Work: DOD Should Evaluate Programs in Relation to Department Goals," this month.
