Elon Musk continues harassment of federal officials with another ultimatum

The chaos and confusion created in the administration by his first ultimatum was not enough. Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, was back on the attack on Monday and threatened to fire officials who fail to answer an email in which he asks them — without having the authority to do so — to explain what they did at work the previous week. The actions of U.S. President Donald Trump and his main ally are increasingly showing traits that resemble authoritarianism by issuing their threats arbitrarily, without submitting to laws or procedures, and demanding whatever they wish even if they have no legal authority to do so.

The administration itself had to clarify Monday that responding to the request from Musk and his team was voluntary and that not doing so was not equivalent to resignation, as the tech magnate had baselessly threatened in his position as head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), but at the same time Trump insisted that not responding was tantamount to being fired, fueling legal uncertainty. Musk said that he is giving employees a second chance. “Subject to the discretion of the President, they will be given another chance. Failure to respond a second time will result in termination,” the tycoon said, although it is not clear when this new message will be sent.

The controversy began when, over the weekend, the administration sent an email to the approximately 2.3 million federal employees in the U.S. with the subject line: “What did you do last week?” The email read: “Please reply to this email with approx. 5 bullets of what you accomplished last week and cc your manager.” The deadline to respond was Monday at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. The email did not identify the sender or authorization to request that information.

Before officials received it, Musk had tweeted the contents of the email with a threat of his own, again without legal basis: “Consistent with President Trump‘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 posted on Saturday.

The demand sparked controversy, not only among officials but within federal agencies and departments themselves. Many of them pushed back against Musk’s demands and told their employees not to respond to the request. It was the most significant public divergence between Trump’s staunchest ally and members of the president’s Cabinet. Ultimately, the White House Office of Personnel Management informed agency heads that their employees were not required to respond but that doing so was voluntary, implicitly disavowing Musk.

The president himself defended Musk’s initiative on Monday and his team also subscribed to his conspiracy theory that there are a large number of public officials who collect their pay without even existing, a theory that Musk has also embraced without presenting any evidence in this regard.

“What he’s doing is saying, ‘Are you actually working?’” Trump said in the Oval Office, flanked by French President Emmanuel Macron. Trump justified Musk’s demand as an effort to identify those people. “And then, if you don’t answer, like, you’re sort of semi-fired or you’re fired, because a lot of people aren’t answering because they don’t even exist,” he said, suggesting that many people on the federal payroll are under false identities.

Musk had already floated the conspiracy theory over the weekend. “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 on X.

Asked about instructions from some departments and agencies to their employees not to respond to Musk’s request, Trump downplayed the disagreements. “They don’t mean that in any way combatively with Elon,” he said, adding that “everyone thought it was a pretty ingenious idea.” According to Trump, what some departments were doing was trying to preserve their confidential information, although the confrontation appears to go deeper than that.

“Incompetence”

Lawyers representing unions, businesses, veterans and other organizations filed a lawsuit in federal court in California on Monday, arguing that Musk had violated the law by threatening mass layoffs. The suit, led by the State Democracy Defenders Fund, called it “one of the most massive labor frauds in the history of this country.”

Musk, however, continues to insist on his thesis and to be dismissive of federal officials and employees. “The email request was utterly trivial, as the standard for passing the test was to type some words and press send! Yet so many failed even that inane test, urged on in some cases by their managers. Have you ever witnessed such incompetence and contempt for how your taxes are being spent? Makes old Twitter look good. Didn’t think that was possible,” he tweeted, misrepresenting what happened. “This is just a case of asking federal workers to do what everyone else does. Fair,” he also wrote, as if an employee of any company should respond to such a request even if it came from someone not authorized to make it.

The United States is in a fiscal crisis and will likely need spending cuts and tax increases (tariffs or otherwise) to stabilize its debt trajectory. But Trump and his team have entered the administration like a bull in a china shop, with the added bonus that they don’t seem to care about respecting the law. This is causing chaos and confusion within the administration, where federal employees are receiving contradictory instructions. Some have been fired and then rehired because of the hole they left behind. Overall, the treatment that officials are receiving makes federal employment less attractive for the future.

The email about what employees did last week opens a new front, but the layoffs continue regardless of that message. In addition, since Monday, many federal agencies have already required their employees to work in person. “Starting this week, those who still fail to return to office will be placed on administrative leave,” Musk wrote. “Full time, Covid-era remote work is done under @POTUS leadership,” tweeted Lee Zeldin, Trump’s new administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

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