As the IRS fired thousands of workers across the country on Thursday, many laid-off employees walked out of the headquarters in Washington, D.C., for the last time.

A tearful executive at the U.S. Internal Revenue Service told staffers on Thursday that about 6,000 employees would be fired, a person familiar with the matter said, in a move that would eliminate roughly 6% of the agency's workforce in the midst of the busy tax-filing season.

President Trump and his friend Elon Musk have fired thousands of government workers since Trump took office last month.

The IRS has begun laying off more than 6,000 new and newly promoted employees across the country as part of the push to slash the federal government, sources say.

The layoffs largely include workers in compliance departments. Compliance work includes ensuring that taxpayers are abiding by the tax code, filing their returns and paying their taxes, among other du