Billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk emailed federal staff asking them to listing what they’d executed final week.
A number of US federal businesses informed workers not to reply to a requirement by President Donald Trump’s adviser Elon Musk to listing their accomplishments within the final week or be fired.
Federal businesses gave the memo on Sunday, a day after Musk’s crew despatched an e-mail to tons of of hundreds of federal workers giving them about 48 hours to problem their experiences.
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 supplied 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 employees emails telling them to not reply outdoors their chains of command, in a potential signal of rigidity 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, via the workplace of the director, is in control of all our evaluate processes,” stated FBI Director Kash Patel, a Trump appointee, in an e-mail to employees seen by the Reuters information company.
Federal staff on Saturday night acquired an e-mail instructing them to element the work they did in the course of 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 handle within the Workplace of Personnel Administration, however didn’t embrace Musk’s menace of termination.
Staff 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 method has drawn widespread criticism.
The biggest federal staff’ union, the American Federation of Authorities Workers, 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.
‘Primary pulse verify’
The e-mail left some workers much more pissed off and frightened after weeks of uncertainty about their futures.
Some attorneys inside the US Justice Division expressed concern that their work is confidential.
“I actually surprise when somebody goes to say sufficient,” one IRS worker informed Reuters.
Musk on X on Sunday known as the e-mail “a really fundamental pulse verify”.
The rationale this issues is {that a} vital variety of people who find themselves alleged to be working for the federal government are doing so little work that they aren’t checking their e-mail in any respect!
In some instances, we consider non-existent individuals or the identities of useless persons 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 alleged to be working for the federal government are doing so little work that they aren’t checking their e-mail in any respect!” Musk additionally wrote.
“In some instances, we consider non-existent individuals or the identities of useless persons 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 e-mail response.
He instructed employees to adjust to Musk’s order.
“DOGE and Elon are doing nice work. Historic. We’re completely satisfied to take part,” Martin wrote.
