NBC News went inside the old limestone mine where federal employee retirements are processed by hand—an antiquated system Elon Musk highlighted earlier this year.
In Boyers, Pennsylvania, 220 feet underground, the Office of Personnel Management is in possession of some 400 million records that are stored in 26,000 file cabinets. The process caught the attention of the Department of Government Efficiency and may easily be an area of the federal government most in need of reform, which has been attempted many times over the years with no success.
Federal employee retirements are processed using paper, by hand, in an old limestone mine in Pennsylvania. 700+ mine workers operate 230 feet underground to process ~10,000 applications per month, which are stored in manila envelopes and cardboard boxes. The retirement process… pic.twitter.com/dXCTgpAWLs
— Department of Government Efficiency (@DOGE) February 11, 2025
In the days following President Donald Trump’s inauguration, the mine quickly drew the attention of Elon Musk and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency. Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia, a Tesla board member and Musk friend, said he was recruited to the project after he walked into a meeting where it was already being discussed.
“They were talking about how it’s a place where all the papers are stored for a manual retirement process. It’s been around for decades. It’s been tried to be digitized for decades, unsuccessfully, and it’s a painful, slow process,” Gebbia said. “And they turn and look at me and go: 'Joe, you know how to build digital products with great user experience. Can you help us?'”
NBC News was granted rare and exclusive access to the mine Monday, when DOGE staffers arrived to tour it and plan the next steps in modernizing the OPM operation there.
In February, under the direction of DOGE, OPM staffers processed their first all-digital, no-paperwork federal retirement. The team was given a one-week goal, and it completed the retirement in two days.
“It really became a proof point and a rallying cry to everyone to say this is possible. Now we get to go build the product behind that and actually do something that’s scalable,” Gebbia said. (NBC News)
NBC goes inside the literal underground mine "where a few hundred federal employees process all retirement paperwork for the entire federal government" — stored in 26,000 filing cabinets.@DOGE is working to make it more modern, efficient, and cost effective. pic.twitter.com/du456luStz
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) April 8, 2025
While the mine will retain the records, Gebbia told NBC they are working to create a process where no new paperwork is added, with changes coming as soon as next month.
"We're working at startup speed, so we're working through iterations right now, and our next one will be testing with retirees on May 1," he said. "We're moving at an incredible pace."
