Trump revokes Biden orders, ends federal work-from-home rules

WASHINGTON – US President Donald Trump revoked dozens of executive orders put into place by his predecessor Joe Biden, implemented a federal hiring freeze and ordered government workers back to the office, as part of the first tranche of official actions he’s signed since retaking office.

Mr Trump previewed the moves following an indoor parade procession at the Capital One Arena in Washington, following

an inaugural address

in which he vowed a dramatic overhaul of the federal government.

“I’ll revoke nearly 80 destructive and radical executive actions of the previous administration, one of the worst administrations in history,” Mr Trump said.

The 78 Biden executive orders rescinded include an order setting a goal for half of US vehicles sold in 2030 to be zero-emission, the creation of a panel to reunite migrant families separated by the first Trump administration, and a recent move to remove Cuba’s designation as a sponsor of terrorism.

The immediate halt to all pending federal regulations is a standard move for the transfer of presidential power dating back to at least former president Jimmy Carter.

It directs federal agencies to stop proposing or finalising rules except in emergencies, and to withdraw any rules that haven’t yet been published.

The freeze will lift at each agency as soon as a Trump-appointed agency head arrives to approve new rules. 

“It’s important because it lets the new administration get its people in place before its agencies start making new policies,” said Professor Jack Beermann, who teaches administrative law at Boston University. “It’s routine, and it’s probably helpful to the transition. There’s nothing nefarious about it, and the alternative would be worse.”  

The workforce executive actions – which included a hiring freeze across the government – are likely the opening salvo in an attempt to rein in the size of the federal government.

Mr Trump indicated he would single out the Internal Revenue Service in particular.

“We will pause the hiring of any new IRS agents. We will also require that federal workers must return to the office in person,” Mr Trump said.

Mr Trump also reinstated an order claiming broad authority to hire and fire high-level civil service workers.

He had signed an order just before the 2020 presidential election, which created a new classification of federal workers known as “Schedule F”.

Mr Biden revoked that first order on his third day in office, before it could go into effect.

The 2020 order was met with an immediate lawsuit from public employee unions, who would likely again challenge Mr Trump’s move to reinstate the Schedule F classification.

But return-to-work policies have been a particular target for Mr Elon Musk, the billionaire Tesla Inc and SpaceX CEO heading

Mr Trump’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency

.

Mr Musk pushed for a return-to-work mandate in an attempt to encourage some federal workers to simply quit or be fired as no-shows.

Federal work-from-home policies were the subject of the first hearing in 2025 by the Republican-controlled House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee, which has appointed a new subcommittee to complement the work of Mr Musk’s Doge.

About a third of federal employees are working from home full-time, according to a report in 2024 from Senator Joni Ernst, a Republican from Iowa.

But many agencies still have the same office footprint as they had before the Covid-19 pandemic, resulting in about half of federal office space going unused, she said.

Federal employee unions say Ms Ernst’s numbers are misleading.

Data from the Office of Management and Budget show that about 10 per cent of the workforce is permanently remote – including disabled workers with a documented accommodation, military spouses, and those where the nature of the work is mobile. 

Federal telework guidelines long predate the national emergency that Mr Trump declared in March 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Under the Telework Enhancement Act of 2010, agencies were required to adopt remote work policies that encouraged many employees to work from home.

Separately, Mr Trump vowed to fulfil a campaign pledge by signing an executive order banning any federal department or agency from working to censor or limit the speech of US citizens and to ban federal money from being used to label domestic speech as mis- or dis-information.

Mr Trump has said he would order the Department of Justice to investigate and prosecute people involved in “online censorship” and called for cutting federal research funding and student-loan support for any US universities “discovered to have engaged in censorship activities or election interferences” such as flagging social media content for removal. BLOOMBERG