When termination letters were sent to employees across the federal government last week, the Trump administration affected an agency charged with the readiness of America’s nuclear arsenal.
The move also shined a spotlight on the agency, the National Nuclear Security Administration, which few Americans likely think of often, if ever, but has a monumental responsibility.
Here’s a rundown of what the obscure agency does and the potential reasons that the Trump administration had to quickly adjust some of the firings:
What is the agency’s mission?
The National Nuclear Security Administration maintains, refurbishes and keeps safe the United States’ more than 3,000 nuclear warheads. It also supervises the production of new nuclear warheads. It has a $25 billion annual budget and around 2,000 directly hired employees, who manage more than 55,000 contractors who play an integral part in warhead production and maintenance.
Congress also put the agency in charge of thwarting nuclear proliferation, researching and developing nuclear propulsion systems for submarines and directing national laboratories that provide key scientific and engineering knowledge for the U.S. nuclear weapons system.
Those laboratories include the historical Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, where the top secret Manhattan Project took place during World War II.
To what department does it belong?
Confusingly, despite its long-held, pivotal role in the military’s defense strategy, the agency sits within the Department of Energy, rather than the Department of Defense.
In 2017, after accepting the offer to serve as energy secretary in the first Trump administration, Rick Perry was bewildered that the job entailed supervising the maintenance and production of the most fearsome weapons in the world.
What happened last week?
On Thursday, about 300 probationary employees at the nuclear security agency were fired, according to people familiar with the matter. A spokesperson for the Energy Department disputed those numbers, saying fewer than 50 people at the agency had been fired and most had administrative and clerical roles.
On Friday night, at least some of the laid-off staff members at the agency were told to come back to their jobs, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the firings.
NBC News reported that the agency struggled to reach out to some employees that it wanted to reinstate, unable to find contact information for those workers after they were shut off from their federal government email accounts.
Why is this a critical time for the agency?
The agency is trying to modernize the rapidly aging U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal.
As of 2024, the N.N.S.A. was carrying out seven warhead modernization programs for the Defense Department. The New York Times reported last year that the U.S. military was expected to spend roughly $1.7 trillion to overhaul the nuclear weapons infrastructure and warheads that were designed and built several decades prior.
That means the agency is overseeing the research, development, testing, design, production and maintenance of new nuclear warheads and the updated infrastructure they require. In 2024, the N.N.S.A. administrator at the time, Jill Hruby, said that her agency was “being asked to do more than at any time since the Manhattan Project.”
The Defense Department’s nuclear modernization programs depend on N.N.S.A.’s ability to provide nuclear warheads “in a timely manner,” Anya L. Fink, an analyst for U.S. defense policy, said in a recent report to Congress.
Why were the job losses a concern?
Congress has expressed concerns around work force recruitment and retention issues at the N.N.S.A.
In April 2024, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm testified to Congress that attrition of skilled employees at the agency remained high because of long hours and fierce competition for talent from the private sector.
Several government reports that year highlighted staffing challenges across the agency and among its contractors that produce nuclear warhead components.
The Government Accountability Office, a watchdog agency, estimated that by fiscal 2026 the N.N.S.A would be 200 positions below the level deemed necessary without a remedy.
“We are facing high demand at a moment where our enterprise is not well positioned to meet it,” Ms. Hruby, the former administrator, said in a speech delivered four days before President Trump’s inauguration.
