Key agencies, including some led by Trump loyalists, refuse to back Musk’s latest draconian demand
Key U.S. agencies, including the FBI, State Department and the Pentagon, have instructed their employees not to comply with cost-cutting chief Elon Musk’s demand that federal workers explain what they accomplished last week — or risk losing their jobs.
That resistance has intensified a pervasive sense of chaos and confusion, while highlighting a potential power struggle among President Donald Trump’s allies, that is affecting federal employees across the country as a new workweek is about to begin.
Musk’s team sent an email to hundreds of thousands of federal employees on Saturday giving them roughly 48 hours to report five specific things they had accomplished last week. In a separate message on X, Musk said any employee who failed to respond by the deadline — set in the email as 11:59 p.m. EST Monday — would lose their job.
Democrats and even some Republicans were critical of Musk’s unusual directive, which came just hours after Trump encouraged him on social media to “get more aggressive” in reducing the size of the government through his so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. The day before, Musk celebrated his new position by waving a giant chainsaw during an appearance at a conservative conference.
Sen. John Curtis, R-Utah, was among the members of Trump’s own party who had concerns. Utah has 33,000 federal employees.
“If I could say one thing to Elon Musk, it’s like, please put a dose of compassion in this,” Curtis said. “These are real people. These are real lives. These are mortgages. … It’s a false narrative to say we have to cut and you have to be cruel to do it as well.”
Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., also questioned the legal basis the Trump administration would have for dismissing tens of thousands of workers for refusing to heed Musk’s latest demand, though the email did not include the threat about workers losing their jobs.
Labor unions have threatened lawsuits, while several agency leaders, including Trump appointees, encouraged their workers not to cooperate.
Newly confirmed FBI Director Kash Patel, an outspoken Trump ally, instructed bureau employees to ignore Musk’s request, at least for now. [Continue reading…]
Five bullet points describing one work week—a week that included a federal holiday—cannot capture the importance of the work performed by most federal employees. And it certainly cannot capture the functions of those federal employees already placed on administrative leave, who were explicitly prohibited from performing their job duties during the week in question.
In essence, it appears that the Trump administration is demanding that employees justify their positions. But to date, the administration has done a consistently poor job of determining which positions are, in fact, important. Its poor-track record is evidenced by agencies’ efforts to recall fired probationary employees after realizing they perform crucial functions, such as managing the nuclear stockpile and the power grid or those working on responses to bird flu. Meaningful reorganization of the federal workforce requires more than five bullet points; it requires a holistic evaluation of how federal programs operate. [Continue reading…]
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) slammed Elon Musk over an “absurd weekend email” sent to federal employees requiring they send the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) a list of what they accomplished in the past week.
“Our public workforce deserves to be treated with dignity and respect for the unheralded jobs they perform,” Murkowski wrote on the social platform X. “The absurd weekend email to justify their existence wasn’t it.”
The Alaska senator criticized Musk and the work done by his Department of Government Efficiency as it looks to slash federal spending and is examining various departments’ abilities to serve President Trump’s agenda.
“If Elon Musk truly wants to understand what federal workers accomplished over the past week, he should get to know each department and agency, and learn about the jobs he’s trying to cut,” Murkowski said. [Continue reading…]