About a month after the department moved to dismiss several top executives at the Interior Department following their objections to giving the Department of Government Efficiency access to a federal personnel and payroll system, the Interior Department has tapped a SpaceX alum, Paul McInerny, to lead the department’s technology.
The new chief information officer worked at billionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX for several years, most recently as a senior manager for software automation tools, a role he left in 2020 to work at a lawn care startup, according to his LinkedIn and previous media coverage. McInerny has never worked in the government before.
Interior is the latest agency to undergo leadership turnover in its tech shop since President Donald Trump took office.
Musk has been leading the government-slashing DOGE effort. At Interior, a previous DOGE associate, Tyler Hassen, is serving as the assistant secretary for policy, management and budget.
Three Interior Department employees confirmed McInerny’s new role with Nextgov/FCW. An Interior Department public affairs specialist told Nextgov/FCW that “the Department does not comment on personnel matters” when asked about McInerny’s new role.
McInerny replaces an acting CIO that took over last month after the department put its previous CIO Darren Ash on administrative leave alongside the department’s chief information security officer, associate solicitor and an HR associate director.
That shakeup followed weeks of back and forth over DOGE attempting to gain access to a key payroll system housed at Interior, something the then-CIO and others warned came with risks for privacy, cybersecurity and system integrity.
“This episode epitomizes the cruelty, ignorance, and gross mismanagement ignited by DOGE in the federal service,” Tim Whitehouse, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, said in a statement.
Typically, federal employees who aren’t in their probationary periods are entitled to a chance to defend their employment following a proposed removal before a final determination has been made. PEER is representing Irish, arguing that his proposed firing violated the Whistleblower Protection Act, among other things.
McInerny is entering the department as it’s consolidating major functions, including IT, across its various bureaus and offices. Widespread layoffs are expected to follow. The Interior Department is home to the National Park Service, Bureau of Indian Affairs and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Survey, among other agencies.
That reorganization — which is expected to also include functions such as communications, finance, human resources and contracting — began over the weekend. Rather than each Interior component maintaining its own office to carry out those responsibilities, employees are being moved to the central part of the department and their offices will report directly to Secretary Doug Burgum. Their roles, duty stations and supervisory chains of command will not immediately be impacted.
“We will be realigning relevant positions within the Information Technology functional area from the Bureau level to the Department level, effective May 4, 2025,” an internal email obtained by Nextgov/FCW reads. “The unification is part of a broader effort to consolidate several Departmental functional areas, allowing us to optimize resources and improve service delivery.”
Centralizing technology across the department could be helpful, given the number of redundant systems, two current employees told Nextgov/FCW. But some are skeptical of the new administration’s intentions and fear losing too many critical staff, one said. Most of the Interior’s tech leadership has left the department since January.
On Friday, Interior invited employees to upcoming webinars to provide updates to the “workforce reshaping effort” and information on the reduction-in-force process.
Government Executive reporter Eric Katz contributed to this report.
