DOJ clears the way for government to hire technologists still connected to their private sector employers

"The Office of Personnel Management now has DOJ's blessing to allow individuals joining the Tech Force to keep their restricted stock units that haven't yet vested - company stocks issued with a vesting plan that dictates when employees get full ownership of them - while they work for the government on a leave of absence from their private sector employer."

"Why are we replacing a workforce we already had with individuals who may still be beholden to an outside employer? It raises a lot of very serious concerns. - Cynthia Brown, senior ethics counsel at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington"

"Federal employees are subject to ethics rules meant to ensure that they work for the public interest. The setup is an unusual one, allowing tech company managers to maintain financial stakes in their employers while serving in government positions."

The Trump administration's U.S. Tech Force program recruits managers from major tech companies including Microsoft, Nvidia, OpenAI, and Palantir to work for the federal government. The Justice Department issued an opinion permitting these employees to maintain their restricted stock units that haven't vested while working for the government on leave from their private employers. This arrangement deviates from standard federal ethics rules designed to ensure government employees work solely in the public interest. The program was launched to recruit early-career engineers after the administration removed over 20,000 technologists from government positions. Ethics experts and public sector lawyers expressed skepticism about the arrangement, questioning whether employees with financial interests in private companies can remain impartial in government service.

Read at Nextgov.com