Amid the flurry of recent headlines about Donald Trump's overhaul of the US federal government, one set of lay-offs attracted more attention than most.
There are conflicting accounts over how many people were fired at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the agency tasked with maintaining the country's nuclear weapons.
But within a day, the administration reversed course, reportedly issuing a memo to many of the affected employees, telling them their termination notices had been rescinded.
The sackings were part of a massive cost cutting exercise, led by Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Thousands of workers across the federal government have been fired on top of the roughly 75,000 people who've accepted "buyouts" which promise pay and benefits until September in exchange for their resignations.
The Trump administration has also sought to freeze government spending, cancel contracts and dismantle some agencies including the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
"We've got a two trillion dollar deficit and if we don't do something about this deficit, the country's going bankrupt," Mr Musk said at a press conference alongside the president in the Oval Office.
"It's not optional for us to reduce the federal expenses, it's essential."
A new approach to an ongoing issue
The size of the federal government is a long-standing political issue in the US.
Former Republican president Ronald Reagan ordered what became known as the "Grace Commission" in 1982 to identify and eliminate "waste, fraud and abuse".
And Democratic president Bill Clinton oversaw the cutting of more than 400,000 jobs in an effort to create what he called a "leaner, not meaner" federal workforce.
"In both cases, these efforts were done within the system to some extent," said Linda Bilmes, a senior lecturer in public policy at Harvard Kennedy School who worked in Mr Clinton's commerce department.
She described Mr Musk's work, in contrast, as more of a "scorched earth" approach.
"There is a lot of waste in government," she said.
"However in my view, [Musk's] not going about finding it in an appropriate way, because finding the waste means a very painstaking process."
DOGE claims to have found $US55 billion ($86 billion) in savings so far, with Mr Musk setting a goal of cutting the budget by at least $US1 trillion.
Stewart Whitson, from the conservative think thank the Foundation for Government Accountability, argues there's an "astronomical" amount of waste still to uncover.
"Elon Musk, one of the smartest, most brilliant entrepreneurs in the world, has volunteered his time to help right the ship of the US government," he said.
"I think what's most exciting about that is we're just scratching the surface … think how much more they're going to find."
Could the US face a constitutional crisis?
Mr Trump has pushed the limits of the presidential powers since returning to the White House, prompting a series of legal challenges against many of his executive orders.
Opponents of Mr Trump's attempts to shutter USAID, for example, argue Congress established the agency, and authorised its funding, meaning the president cannot abolish it without congressional approval.
"One of the most important powers of Congress is the power of the purse, the power to decide when to tax, and the power to decide when to spend," said Aziz Huq, a law professor at the University of Chicago.
"What you have today is a really unprecedented situation where the president is asserting the power to control spending above and beyond what any president in American history has tried to do, in ways that dramatically undermine Congress's authority."
The US has three branches of government — the executive (run by the president), the legislative (Congress) and the judiciary (the courts) — in a checks-and-balances system aimed at preventing any one branch from becoming too powerful.
Some Democrats and legal scholars have raised concerns around whether the Trump administration will comply with the courts, warning the US could be headed for a constitutional crisis.
Professor Huq said there was no clear definition of what counts as a constitutional crisis, and he wasn't sure it accurately reflected the current environment. But he argued a situation where an administration did not adhere to the courts would be "profoundly worrying".
The president has previously insisted he will follow court orders, but stirred controversy with a weekend social media post, appearing to echo Napoleon Bonaparte.
"He who saves his Country does not violate any Law," he said on Truth Social.
"Spoken like a true dictator," Democratic senator Adam Schiff replied.
Mr Trump's post followed an earlier statement on X from his vice-president, JD Vance, who posted to X: "Judges aren't allowed to control the executive's legitimate power."
While White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has argued "the real constitutional crisis" was coming from the judges who've temporarily blocked elements of the president's agenda.
"We believe these judges are acting as judicial activists rather than honest arbiters of the law," she said.
It remains to be seen how many cases could end up in the conservative majority Supreme Court, where Mr Trump was last year found to have broad immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts.
The president has recently asked the justices to intervene to allow him to fire the head of an agency that protects government whistleblowers, in what could become an early test of his power.
Dismantling government programs
While legal challenges have slowed some aspects of the president's agenda, he's continuing to sign executive orders at a rapid pace.
One of his first priorities upon returning to the White House was to scrap diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs, which he's labelled wasteful and discriminatory.
"Billions of dollars are spent annually on DEI, but rather than reducing bias and promoting inclusion, DEI creates and then amplifies prejudicial hostility and exacerbates interpersonal conflict," a White House statement said.
Alaysia Black Hackett was the chief diversity and equity officer in the Department of Labor under former president Joe Biden. She says her work focused on trying to diversify the workforce, as well as targeting the department's employment initiatives at vulnerable communities.
"Everything was data driven, and when we look at it, it literally is taking away barriers," she said.
Ms Hackett was a political appointee of Mr Biden's, and resigned before Mr Trump was sworn back in. But she says many of the career public servants affected by the president's changes are now sad and afraid.
"It's the misconception that DEIA (diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility) equals Black American," she said of the criticism of the programs.
"It's also this idea that DEIA initiatives take away from one demographic or ethnic group and gives to another that did not earn it."
The president's DEI cuts are among the measures being challenged in the courts.
But corporate America has already taken notice of the administration's moves, with Target among the companies to have wound back their diversity programs.
Mr Trump insists his election victory has given him a mandate for major change, and that he's following through on his election promises.
"The American people believe in common sense," argued Mr Whitson. "I'm just excited to see how it all plays out."
A big question now is how far the president will seek to go.
