Musk’s ultimatum for government workers to justify their jobs creates chaos in the Administration
The Department of Government Efficiency has required federal employees to explain their accomplishments over the past week or face layoff, but several agencies are asking employees not to reply
U.S. federal employees have until midnight on Monday to justify their existence. The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) headed by the billionaire Elon Musk sent officials an email this weekend giving them 48 hours to explain their achievements of the past week or face dismissal. In doing so, DOGE appears to be shifting the need to argue that their work is legitimate onto public employees themselves. However, several federal departments and agencies have asked their own employees to ignore the ultimatum, adding to the chaos and confusion.
The DOGE request comes at a time when the Donald Trump administration has somewhat chaotically launched mass layoffs in the administration. First, it offered a severance plan not authorized by Congress, which some 75,000 employees took advantage of. Then, it launched large-scale layoffs in different departments and agencies. At times, it has had to reverse layoffs or start hiring again, as necessary functions are not being filled. In this context of cuts, the email is especially intimidating for recipients, since they could be risking their jobs with the response.
“Consistent with Presidentc@realDonaldTrump‘s instructions, all federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week. Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation,” the billionaire wrote on Saturday on his social network, X, without making clear his legal authority to make such a request and even less so to interpret the lack of response as a resignation. In his new term, Trump has shown that he is willing to break the law when he sees fit.
Shortly afterward, federal employees — more than 2.3 million of them — began receiving a terse email with the subject line: “What did you do last week?” It carried the instruction: “Please reply to this email with approximately five bullets of what you accomplished last week and cc your manager.” The deadline to respond was 11:59 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on Monday. The email did not include Musk’s threat to take a lack of response as a resignation, increasing legal uncertainty and chaos among officials.
The email also did not identify the sender or this individual’s authorization to request this information. The sender was simply listed as HR, apparently referring to the acronym for human resources, but without making clear which human resources department and on what legal basis.
Federal laws prevent employees of some agencies from disclosing information about their work without explicit permission. The message asked that classified information, links and attachments not be sent, but the gray area is very broad. The message also did not address the status of those who were on vacation, sick leave, traveling or in any other circumstance that would make it difficult or impossible for them to respond to the message.
Contradictory orders
Adding to the confusion, some federal departments and agencies told their own officials that they did not have to respond to DOGE’s request. “The Department of State will respond on behalf of the Department. No employee is obligated to report their activities outside of their Department chain of command,” Tibor Nagy, acting undersecretary for management, said in an email, as cited by AP.
The National Security Agency (NSA) told employees it was “awaiting further instructions” from the Department of Defense. Meanwhile, the NSA advised employees not to respond until it received more information, according to The Washington Post.
The DOGE ultimatum even reached federal judges, whose tenures are lifelong, and court employees. In a message to employees Saturday night, federal court officials ordered recipients not to respond. “Please note that this email did not originate from the judiciary or the administrative office and we suggest that no action be taken,” said the message, cited by AP.
The same thing happened in other departments. The National Weather Service leadership also sent a message to its employees on Saturday night, telling them not to respond until management could verify its authenticity.
After causing all this chaos, Elon Musk came up with a conspiracy theory that he spread on his social network to justify the step he has taken without any apparent authority to do so. “The reason this matters is that a significant number of people who are supposed to be working for the government are doing so little work that they are not checking their email at all! In some cases, we believe non-existent people or the identities of dead people are being used to collect paychecks. In other words, there is outright fraud,” he said, without providing the slightest evidence in this regard. DOGE and Musk have spread hoaxes and falsehoods to justify their cuts since the beginning, inflating the figures of the savings they supposedly achieved.
Musk’s ultimatum has increased anger among government employees and the unions that represent them. “Once again, Elon Musk and the Trump Administration have shown their utter disdain for federal employees and the critical services they provide to the American people,” American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) National President Everett Kelley said in a statement.
House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries also criticized the initiative in a statement. “Elon Musk is traumatizing hardworking federal employees, their children and families. He has no legal authority to make his latest demands. We will block him in Congress and in the Courts. Again,” he said.
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