Billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk emailed federal staff asking them to checklist what that they had completed final week.
A number of US federal businesses instructed staff not to answer a requirement by President Donald Trump’s adviser Elon Musk to checklist their accomplishments within the final week or be fired.
Federal businesses gave the memo on Sunday, a day after Musk’s group despatched an electronic mail to a whole lot of hundreds of federal staff giving them about 48 hours to situation their studies.
Musk leads the so-called Division of Authorities Effectivity, which within the first weeks of Trump’s administration has laid off greater than 20,000 staff and provided buyouts to a different 75,000, throughout giant segments of the USA authorities.
Following Musk’s transfer, Trump administration-appointed officers on the FBI and State Division despatched their workers emails telling them to not reply outdoors their chains of command, in a potential signal of pressure between allies of the Republican president and the world’s richest individual in his marketing campaign to chop down the federal government’s 2.3 million member civilian workforce.
“The FBI, by the workplace of the director, is accountable for all our evaluate processes,” mentioned FBI Director Kash Patel, a Trump appointee, in an electronic mail to workers seen by the Reuters information company.
Federal staff on Saturday night acquired an electronic mail instructing them to element the work they did throughout the earlier week by 11:59 p.m. ET on Monday (05:00 GMT Tuesday), shortly after Musk posted on his X social media web site that failing to reply can be taken as a resignation.
The topic of the e-mail learn, “What did you do final week?” and got here from a human sources deal with within the Workplace of Personnel Administration, however didn’t embrace Musk’s menace of termination.
Employees on the departments of Homeland Safety, Schooling and Commerce, in addition to on the Federal Deposit Insurance coverage Company, the Nationwide Institutes of Well being and the Inside Income Service additionally acquired steerage urging them to not reply, based on sources and emails reviewed by Reuters.
Labour unions have additionally threatened lawsuits.
Whereas there’s bipartisan settlement that the US authorities, which carries $36 trillion in debt, would profit from reform, Musk’s strategy has drawn widespread criticism.
The biggest federal staff’ union, the American Federation of Authorities Staff, wrote on X on Sunday that it didn’t consider Musk had the authority to fireside staff who didn’t reply and would formally request that the message be rescinded.
‘Fundamental pulse test’
The e-mail left some staff much more pissed off and apprehensive after weeks of uncertainty about their futures.
Some attorneys throughout the US Justice Division expressed concern that their work is confidential.
“I actually marvel when somebody goes to say sufficient,” one IRS worker instructed Reuters.
Musk on X on Sunday referred to as the e-mail “a really fundamental pulse test”.
The rationale this issues is {that a} vital variety of people who find themselves imagined to be working for the federal government are doing so little work that they aren’t checking their electronic mail in any respect!
In some instances, we consider non-existent individuals or the identities of lifeless individuals are getting used… https://t.co/Rj5Xe6vYZB
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 23, 2025
“The rationale this issues is {that a} vital variety of people who find themselves imagined to be working for the federal government are doing so little work that they aren’t checking their electronic mail in any respect!” Musk additionally wrote.
“In some instances, we consider non-existent individuals or the identities of lifeless individuals are getting used to gather paychecks. In different phrases, there’s outright fraud.”
He has supplied no proof of such fraud.
Some officers welcomed the transfer.
Ed Martin, Trump’s nominee for US Legal professional in Washington, DC, who’s serving in an interim capability, praised Musk and DOGE in an electronic mail response.
He instructed workers to adjust to Musk’s order.
“DOGE and Elon are doing nice work. Historic. We’re comfortable to take part,” Martin wrote.
