USAID employees have been ordered to remove personal belongings from the premises.
Federal Trade Commission employees have been ordered to move to a building previously occupied by the Agency for International Development.
Employees of the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have been ordered to leave their offices and move to a building now being vacated by the US Agency for International Development (USAID). This order came from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which is headed by billionaire Elon Musk, Bloomberg reports, citing sources.
It is noted that most of the 1,300 employees of the antitrust and consumer agency FTC work in a building in Washington, which also rents space to several other federal agencies. The 10-year lease of the FTC premises expired last year, but it was extended for another three years until 2027.
The FTC headquarters, which houses the agency’s five commissioners and senior executives, is located in another government building a few blocks from the USAID building.
The General Services Administration, which leases office space on behalf of federal agencies, has sought congressional approval for a new 20-year lease for the FTC. However, while the Senate approved the new lease request in November, the House of Representatives has yet to take it up for consideration.
As of Thursday, a list of GSA office leases showed that the FTC’s lease expires on Friday.
USAID employees were ordered to remove personal belongings from the agency’s headquarters this week.
The DOGE website claims that the FTC’s lease in Washington, D.C., was terminated, resulting in more than $11 million in savings. The website does not specify how the claimed savings were calculated. According to the GSA, the agency pays $13.6 million per year for the space under its current lease.
According to Bloomberg, when the FTC last moved offices in 2013, it spent about $75 million to move and furnish the new space.
As a reminder, on January 20, Trump signed an executive order suspending all foreign aid programs for 90 days pending a review to determine whether they align with his policy goals. USAID in Ukraine was ordered to halt all projects and spending on them.
