Army Veteran Says He Was Fired Twice Amid Elon Musk Cuts

An Army veteran has said he was fired not once but twice from his job as a disaster recovery coordinator in Alaska.

Mike Macans, who served as an airborne infantryman before joining the Small Business Administration’s emergency management team, told Alaska Public Media that since losing his job, he had received no communication from the government about his future.

“They locked me out of all my systems,” he added. “The only place I’ve gotten any help is online—on frickin’ Reddit.” Newsweek has contacted the SBA for comment via email.

Why It Matters

President Donald Trump has tasked the Department of Government Efficiency, headed by billionaire Elon Musk, with cutting government spending and reducing the size of the federal workforce.

Since taking office on January 20, the administration has fired thousands of federal workers and has attempted to rehire some of them—including those working with nuclear weapons and on bird flu prevention—causing further confusion amid the mass layoffs.

What To Know

Macans told APM that he was initially fired via email on February 7. The following Monday, he was told that the termination email was a mistake. However, on Tuesday afternoon, he received two more emails from the SBA that looked almost identical to the first one, reiterating that he had been fired.

The Army veteran worked as a recovery coordinator for Alaska, Oregon, Washington and Idaho. He described his job on the disaster recovery team as “the phone-a-friend,” someone people could call if they had been affected by a natural disaster in the area.

His region is at risk of volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes, fires and floods. In his position, people asked him for advice on how to keep their small businesses running, how to build resilience after a disaster and how to address other post-disaster needs.

Macans said he couldn’t understand why he had been fired, as his performance at the agency was stellar. His first performance review said he was “an exceptional asset to the Agency.”

He said losing his job meant losing his health insurance—which his wife, who had survived cancer, needed to help pay for medication to treat her autoimmune disease.

Macans is one of an estimated 30,000 federal workers who have lost their jobs since Trump took office. He agreed that the federal government needed to be overhauled in certain ways but added that he took a job in government to help fix it.

According to the National Federation of Federal Employees, veterans make up almost 30 percent of federal workers.

Macans told APM that he had not received the paperwork he needed to file an unemployment claim and had not been told when his family, which included two young children, would lose their health insurance.

What People Are Saying

Mike Macans told Alaska Public Media: “Don’t abandon and villainize the very people that have served this country and work to bring services to our citizens.”

Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene said during a House Oversight Committee meeting on Tuesday: “[Federal] jobs are paid for by the American tax people who work real jobs, earn real income, pay federal taxes, and then pay these federal employees. Federal employees do not deserve their jobs. Federal employees do not deserve their paychecks.”

The National Federation of Federal Employees said in a November statement: “There are currently 2.278 million civilian federal employees and nearly 30 percent of them are veterans. If DOGE follows through on proposed threats, and lays off 75 percent of the federal workforce, an estimated 481,950 veterans will be laid off.”

What Happens Next

Macans was not optimistic about getting his job back. He has appealed his firing to the Merit Systems Protection Board, which handles disputes related to the federal workforce.

The American Federation of Government Employees and the AFL-CIO are suing the United States Office of Personnel Management in federal court over the mass firings.