{
  "id": 2226197,
  "title": "Exclusive: The man leading Trump’s RTO charge for government workers says he filmed a video in front of a blank wall to avoid work-from-home suspicion",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/20/exclusive-the-man-leading-trumps-rto-charge-for-government-workers",
  "topic": "finance",
  "section": "Finance & Markets",
  "published": "2026-08-20T20:31:56.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Fortune",
    "slug": "fortune",
    "url": "https://fortune.com/2026/08/20/opm-director-scott-kupor-record-video-blank-wall-work-from-home-return-to-office/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "OPM Director Scott Kupor, a key figure in President Donald Trump's return-to-office initiative, revealed during an impromptu conversation on audio recording that he deliberately filmed a video with a blank wall behind him while working from home. Kupor expressed his intentions in an August 18 all-hands agency meeting, captured exclusively by Fortune, indicating he was mindful of potential criticism from colleagues if they discovered he had been out of office. He explained that he sought a plain, unrecognizable backdrop, such as a white wall, to avoid suspicion. OPM Communications team member Kiki Nyoh confirmed to Fortune that Kupor was indeed out of office on that particular day. In response, Nyoh affirmed that OPM has been striving to enhance a high-performance work culture and prioritize merit within the federal workforce. The Trump administration has been advocating for federal employees to return to the office full-time, as mandated by an executive order issued on Trump's first day in office. OPM has been actively pushing for a return to physical offices, with approximately 75% decrease in full-time telework and remote work hours between January and October 2025, according to OPM data. Kupor, who joined OPM in July 2025, has argued that even remote-friendly jobs can suffer from distractions at home, and supervising a largely remote federal workforce is not a task the government is well-prepared for. Despite the administration's return-to-office push, federal employees have largely been critical of the initiative, with a recent Federal News Network survey indicating that over 53% of respondents reported a very negative work experience since returning to the office, with nearly 93% stating their work-life balance had \"much worse\" or \"somewhat worse\" since the shift.",
  "summary": "“I was in my bedroom,” OPM director Scott Kupor said in an all-hands meeting this week. “I was trying to find something that was not recognizable as being in my house, basically.”",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}