Billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk emailed federal employees asking them to record what that they had performed final week.
A number of US federal businesses instructed workers not to reply to a requirement by President Donald Trump’s adviser Elon Musk to record their accomplishments within the final week or be fired.
Federal businesses gave the memo on Sunday, a day after Musk’s workforce despatched an electronic mail to a whole lot of 1000’s of federal workers giving them about 48 hours to challenge their reviews.
Musk leads the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, which within the first weeks of Trump’s administration has laid off greater than 20,000 employees and provided buyouts to a different 75,000, throughout massive segments of the US authorities.
Following Musk’s transfer, Trump administration-appointed officers on the FBI and State Division despatched their employees emails telling them to not reply exterior their chains of command, in a doable signal of stress 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 answerable for all our evaluation processes,” stated FBI Director Kash Patel, a Trump appointee, in an electronic mail to employees seen by the Reuters information company.
Federal employees on Saturday night obtained 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 could be taken as a resignation.
The topic of the e-mail learn, “What did you do final week?” and got here from a human assets handle within the Workplace of Personnel Administration, however didn’t embrace Musk’s menace of termination.
Staff on the departments of Homeland Safety, Training and Commerce, in addition to on the Federal Deposit Insurance coverage Company, the Nationwide Institutes of Well being and the Inner Income Service additionally obtained steerage urging them to not reply, in response to 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 method has drawn widespread criticism.
The most important federal employees’ union, the American Federation of Authorities Staff, wrote on X on Sunday that it didn’t consider Musk had the authority to fireplace workers who didn’t reply and would formally request that the message be rescinded.
‘Fundamental pulse verify’
The e-mail left some workers much more pissed off and fearful after weeks of uncertainty about their futures.
Some attorneys inside 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 primary pulse verify”.
The explanation this issues is {that a} important variety of people who find themselves purported to be working for the federal government are doing so little work that they don’t seem to be checking their electronic mail in any respect!
In some instances, we consider non-existent folks or the identities of useless persons are getting used… https://t.co/Rj5Xe6vYZB
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 23, 2025
“The explanation this issues is {that a} important variety of people who find themselves purported to be working for the federal government are doing so little work that they don’t seem to be checking their electronic mail in any respect!” Musk additionally wrote.
“In some instances, we consider non-existent folks or the identities of useless persons are getting used to gather paychecks. In different phrases, there’s outright fraud.”
He has offered no proof of such fraud.
Some officers welcomed the transfer.
Ed Martin, Trump’s nominee for US Lawyer in Washington, DC, who’s serving in an interim capability, praised Musk and DOGE in an electronic mail response.
He instructed employees to adjust to Musk’s order.
“DOGE and Elon are doing nice work. Historic. We’re blissful to take part,” Martin wrote.
