By Patrick Wingrove, Rachael Levy and Michael Erman
(Reuters) – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is asking some of its recently fired scientists if they will come back to their jobs, including some employees reviewing Elon Musk’s brain implant company, Neuralink, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.
The FDA plans to rehire around 300 people in total, according to four sources with secondhand knowledge of the situation, following President Donald Trump’s rush last week to fire employees at the agency responsible for reviewing drugs, food safety, medical devices and tobacco. Reuters could not verify the figure.
Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, who oversees Neuralink and spent more than $250 million to help elect Trump, has been leading an effort to cut government workers with his Department of Government Efficiency. Thousands have been cut.
At least 11 employees working at the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health – which oversees medical device reviews – have received calls since Friday saying they could return to work on Monday, according to eight FDA sources who spoke under condition of anonymity. Some of the sources were told the FDA would continue making requests to return throughout the weekend.
If the scientists agree to return, they would represent less than one-third of the staffers dismissed about a week ago. The White House told Reuters the administration had fired over 1,000 FDA staffers.
The FDA firings last week included about 20 people in its office of neurological and physical medicine devices, several of whom worked on Neuralink, Reuters exclusively reported. It is not known if all of the fired workers reviewing Neuralink have received the return offer.
The FDA had initially rejected Neuralink’s request to start clinical trials, citing safety risks, Reuters reported in 2023. The agency has since given the startup approval to do clinical trials, which are ongoing.
The FDA did not immediately respond to a comment request. The White House declined to comment and referred questions to the federal health department, which did not respond.
REHIRING SPREE
The attempt to rehire FDA scientists follows a Trump administration rehiring spree, including some employees responsible for U.S. nuclear weapons as well as scientists working on the worsening outbreak of bird flu.
Several scientists who received the FDA’s calls said they were not sure if they wanted to return, although three said they would.
They had chosen to work at the FDA, they told Reuters, because they believed in the mission of public health and safety, often forgoing much higher pay in the private sector.
“I get that (Trump administration officials) are trying to do the Silicon Valley ‘move fast, break things'” motto, said one scientist who received a call back. “But how are you going to be able to hire good people when you’re not offering Silicon Valley stock or pay, and you’ve taken away their stability?”
Americans need “an efficient, effective FDA review process that helps advance the medical technologies American patients depend on. Bringing these specific experts back would help fulfill that mission,” said Scott Whitaker, CEO of the medical device industry group AdvaMed, which had criticized the firings.
Hundreds of jobs were cut that were funded by fees from medical device companies, banks, and others, not by taxpayers, raising questions about the Trump administration’s stated goal of saving taxpayer money.
At least three of the employees asked to rejoin the FDA received termination letters telling them their performance had “not been adequate to justify further employment at the agency.” Reuters earlier reported that many of the fired employees had received exemplary rankings just weeks ago and had no performance issues.
Anna Kelly, White House deputy press secretary, previously told Reuters that Trump had moved swiftly to cut wasteful spending and non-critical government jobs.
(Reporting by Patrick Wingrove and Michael Erman in New York and Rachael Levy in Washington; editing by Caroline Humer and Rod Nickel)
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