Acting Director of National Intelligence William Pulte announced Sunday that his office completed a fourth round of layoffs at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, extending a rapid downsizing campaign that has reshaped the agency in a matter of weeks. Pulte, who disclosed the cuts in a post on X, framed the reductions as a disciplined effort to refocus the intelligence community on its statutory mission.
The fourth round marks the latest step in a restructuring that began under former DNI Tulsi Gabbard and has picked up speed since Pulte took over. President Trump made clear in a Wall Street Journal interview that he considered ODNI “unnecessary and/or too big,” pointing to holdovers from the Obama and Biden administrations as part of the problem.
The scope of the cuts is significant. Before Pulte ever arrived, Gabbard had already laid off roughly 500 people, about 30 percent of the agency’s workforce, Just The News reported. Pulte then launched four additional rounds of reductions after taking office on June 19. The result: an agency that employed between 1,800 and 2,000 people when Trump took office has likely been cut to well below half that number, the Washington Examiner reported.
No official headcount for any individual round has been released. But the trajectory is unmistakable.
Trump did not leave the mission ambiguous. He told The Wall Street Journal he informed Pulte that ODNI was bloated and that he wanted Pulte to “start the process” of firings, with the eventual permanent DNI nominee expected to continue the effort. Trump chose Pulte, who simultaneously serves as director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, to serve as acting intelligence chief after Gabbard’s departure.
Gabbard announced in May that she planned to leave the DNI role, citing her husband’s bone cancer diagnosis. She exited last month.
In his post announcing the fourth round, Pulte struck a tone of measured confidence:
“Since becoming Acting Director of National Intelligence, our team has been smartly, and carefully, reducing the size of ODNI, re-focusing ODNI on national security, the law, and the statute. As of this evening, we just finished a 4th round of thoughtful, measured layoffs. Thank you!”
The language was deliberate. Pulte has consistently described the layoffs as targeting “redundant, or non-critical, personnel”, a phrase he also used on July 10 when he announced the third round of cuts. That earlier post went further, declaring that “U.S. National Intelligence is operating more efficiently and effectively than ever before.”
The pace of the overhaul stands out even in an administration known for moving fast on personnel. Pulte has been acting DNI for only a few weeks, by his own account. In that window, he has executed four rounds of layoffs while also releasing declassified intelligence documents. Newsmax reported that those documents included a CIA assessment concerning Venezuela’s interest in manipulating electronic voting systems, material related to foreign threats to the 2020 election.
Pulte posted a separate message on his personal X account Sunday expressing gratitude to Trump:
“So deeply grateful to POTUS for letting me be acting Director of National Intelligence. He is, truly, the best, and it is a blessing to work for him. While it’s been only a few weeks, so much has already been accomplished, Operationally, AND, Transparency. Thank you, POTUS.”
He did not specify which operational or transparency accomplishments he was referencing beyond the layoffs and the declassified documents.
Pulte’s tenure as acting DNI may be short-lived. Trump has nominated Jay Clayton, currently the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, to serve as the permanent Director of National Intelligence. Clayton’s nomination has cleared a key procedural hurdle, and the Washington Examiner reported that a Senate procedural confirmation vote was expected as early as Monday.
The timing is notable. Pulte completed the fourth round of layoffs on the eve of that vote, ensuring the downsizing was well advanced before a new director takes the helm. Trump indicated he expected Clayton to carry on the effort.
The broader pattern in Washington reflects an administration willing to challenge entrenched bureaucracies across the federal government. While the intelligence community draws the most attention, workforce reductions in the private sector have raised parallel questions about how institutions handle headcount in a tightening environment.
Several important questions remain unanswered. Neither Pulte nor the administration has disclosed how many employees were let go in any individual round. The total reduction across all four Pulte-era rounds is unknown. What criteria separate “redundant” or “non-critical” personnel from essential staff has not been publicly defined.
Critics of intelligence community downsizing have argued that cutting too deep risks degrading analytical capacity at a time of rising global threats. But that argument runs headlong into a structural reality: ODNI was created by Congress after the September 11 attacks to coordinate intelligence across agencies, and its headcount grew steadily under successive administrations without clear statutory justification for every position added.
Trump’s view, stated plainly, was that “there are a lot of people in there that shouldn’t be there.” The layoffs are the direct policy expression of that judgment. Whether the reductions strengthen or weaken national security will become clearer over time, but the administration is not waiting for that debate to play out before acting.
The broader contest over the size and accountability of the federal workforce continues to define this administration’s domestic agenda. Federal courts have pushed back on some executive actions, and policy battles over immigration enforcement and tax reform remain active fronts. But at ODNI, the restructuring is moving faster than any courtroom challenge can catch it.
Four rounds of layoffs in a few weeks is not a bureaucratic trim. It is a deliberate, top-down decision to shrink an agency that grew for two decades with little external scrutiny. Pulte has described the process as “thoughtful” and “measured.” The president called the agency too big and told his acting director to start cutting.
The permanent nominee is waiting in the wings. The cuts are already done.
Washington built ODNI into a sprawling enterprise over twenty years. The Trump administration is finding out how fast you can take it apart when someone finally decides to try.
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