Technology billionaires, including Elon Musk and Sam Altman, will take part in training an “elite” group of US civil servants tasked by Donald Trump’s administration with fast-tracking the modernization of federal agencies’ digital infrastructure.
Under the Tech Force programme, the administration plans to recruit around 1,000 software engineers. Over a two-year period, they will deploy AI and other advanced digital solutions across bodies such as the US Treasury and NASA.
Major technology companies have joined the initiative, including Apple, Coinbase, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, OpenAI, xAI, and Palantir.
“All private companies have committed to sending either their chief executives or chief technology officers to deliver presentations,” Scott Kupor told the Financial Times—Kupor is a former Andreessen Horowitz venture capitalist who heads the US Office of Personnel Management and oversees the Tech Force programme.
According to him, participants will take part in a series of meetings with industry leaders. “One day Alex Karp from Palantir will address the group; the next month—it will be Sam Altman,” Kupor said, adding that companies will also provide participants with corporate training courses and professional certifications free of charge.
Scott Kupor, head of the US Office of Personnel Management, oversees the Tech Force programme.
The programme has already attracted more than 10,000 applications, with selection based on skills rather than higher education or prior work experience. Successful candidates will be offered annual salaries ranging from $150,000 to $200,000—well above the federal government’s standard entry-level pay for IT roles.
Kupor said the first cohort of 1,000 participants will be supervised by around 100 experienced employees from major technology companies, seconded specifically to the public sector. He noted that the government is currently “working through ethics issues” to ensure that specialists assigned to federal agencies are not forced to forgo stock options or other forms of compensation.
Several companies that have joined Tech Force have made large donations to President Donald Trump over the past year, including contributions toward the construction of a White House ballroom.
However, Kupor said that potential conflicts of interest are outweighed by the benefits the programme will deliver to the government by upgrading ageing infrastructure. “What we primarily want from the private sector is to strengthen not only individual contributor roles but also managerial positions,” he explained. “The idea of greater mobility between the public and private sectors, in my view, is inherently positive.”
The initiative operates separately from the so-called Department of Government Efficiency—Doge, which was overseen by Elon Musk last year and was aimed at cutting federal spending by $1 trillion.
Nevertheless, some officials involved in Tech Force recruitment entered the administration via Doge, including Sam Corcos, who now serves as chief information officer at the US Treasury. Assistance has also been offered by Pentagon official Emil Michael.
As a benchmark for Tech Force, Kupor cited the work of a team led by another Doge alumnus—Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia—which helped the administration overhaul federal pension processes and launch websites for Trump’s programmes.