A Trump administration official tasked with overhauling the Interior Department’s budget and staffing is getting ready to leave the agency, raising questions about who will take over a reorganization that could see unknown numbers of staff ousted or reclassified.
Tyler Hassen, who joined Interior as part of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, announced last week he would end a six-month commitment to the federal government, stating that he looks “forward to being at home again with my family.”
“It has been the honor of a lifetime to serve our great country under President Trump’s historic administration,” Hassen, a former Texas oil services executive, wrote in a social media post Saturday. The New York Times reported that he told staff he would step down Aug. 1, but the department has not confirmed that date.
Hassen’s departure leaves a notable vacancy at Interior since Secretary Doug Burgum had taped him as acting assistant secretary of policy, management and budget — and later changed that title to principal deputy assistant secretary, a post that does not require Senate confirmation. That move put Hassen in charge of the department’s cost-cutting efforts and staff reorganization.
