Federal Workers Retirement Rate Based on 1950s Limestone Mine Bottleneck

An old limestone mine in Pennsylvania, which stores all retirement paperwork for government employees, is slowing down the retirement process. Elon Musk wants to change that.

Speaking alongside President Donald Trump on Tuesday, Musk highlighted how the manual processing of paperwork restricts retirements to 10,000 employees per month.

Musk explained that all retirement documents are handwritten, transported into the mine, and sent down via a mineshaft elevator. “The speed of the mineshaft elevator determines how many federal employees can retire, and when it breaks down, no one can retire,” he said. “Doesn’t that sound insane?”

He expressed his goal of streamlining the process to enable federal workers to retire more quickly, aligning with DOGE’s objective of reducing the size of the federal workforce.

The Tesla CEO added, “Almost any other job would contribute more effectively to the goods and services of the United States.”

READ MORE