Some federal agencies advise against responding to Musk's email

24/2/2025 6:04

Multiple U.S. federal

agencies told employees not to respond immediately to a demand

by President Donald Trump's adviser Elon Musk to list their

accomplishments in the last week or be fired, as a chaotic

campaign to cull the bureaucracy pushes forward.



Trump administration-appointed officials at the FBI and

State Department sent their staff emails telling them not to

respond outside their chains of command, in a possible sign of

tension between members of the Republican administration and the

world's richest person in his campaign to cut down the

government's 2.3 million member civilian workforce.



"The FBI, through the office of the director, is in charge

of all our review processes," said FBI Director Kash Patel, a

Trump appointee, in an email to staff seen by Reuters.



Musk leads the so-called Department of Government

Efficiency, which in the first weeks of Trump's administration

has laid off more than 20,000 workers and offered buyouts to

another 75,000, across wide swaths of the government from the

Defense Department - long a top Republican priority - to the

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, where all staff have been

ordered to halt work.



The frantic pace has led the federal government in some

cases to rush to rehire workers who perform critical functions

like securing the nation's nuclear arsenal and trying to fight

the worsening bird flu outbreak, which has caused egg prices to

spike higher.



While there is bipartisan agreement that the U.S.

government, which carries $36 trillion in debt, would benefit

from reform, Musk's tumultuous approach has drawn widespread

criticism, including from voters in some Republican areas.



Federal workers on Saturday evening received an email

instructing them to detail the work they did during the previous

week by 11:59 p.m. ET on Monday (0459 GMT Tuesday), shortly

after Musk posted on his X social media site that failing to

respond would be taken as a resignation.



The subject of the email read, "What did you do last week?"

and came from a human resources address in the Office of

Personnel Management, but did not include Musk's threat of

termination.



Workers at the departments of Defense, Homeland Security,

Education and Commerce, as well as at the Federal Deposit

Insurance Corporation, the National Institutes of Health and the

Internal Revenue Service also were told not to respond pending

further guidance, according to sources and emails reviewed by

Reuters.



"To be clear – this is irregular, unexpected, and warrants

further validation," a senior executive at the National Centers

for Environmental Information, an agency that manages

environmental data and is part of the Commerce Department,

wrote.



Some officials welcomed the move. Ed Martin, Trump's

nominee for U.S. Attorney in Washington, D.C., who is serving in

an interim capacity, praised Musk and DOGE in an email response.



But other offices within the Justice Department,

including the executive office that supports all U.S. attorneys

and the department's civil division, told employees not to reply

pending additional information.



Employees at the Drug Enforcement Administration, part

of the Justice Department, were told to respond, according to an

email seen by Reuters.







UNION QUESTIONS MUSK'S AUTHORITY



The largest federal workers' union, the American Federation

of Government Employees, wrote on X on Sunday that it did not

believe Musk had the authority to fire employees who did not

respond and would formally request that OPM rescind the message.



Meanwhile, the union advised members to ask their

supervisors directly whether to reply and to follow their

guidance.



The email left some employees even more frustrated and

worried after weeks of uncertainty about their futures.



"I really wonder when someone is going to say enough," one

IRS employee told Reuters.



Media offices at the Commerce, Justice, Education and

Treasury departments, as well as at the FDIC and NIH, did not

immediately respond to requests for comment. An FBI spokesperson

declined to comment, and a State Department spokesperson

referred questions to the White House.



Musk on X on Sunday called the email "a very basic pulse

check."



Senator John Curtis, a Republican from Utah, said he

supports the Trump administration's efforts to reduce government

spending but that Musk should take a more humane approach.



"If I could say one thing to Elon Musk, it's please put

a dose of compassion in this," Curtis said on CBS News' "Face

the Nation." "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. We can do both."



Some federal judiciary employees, including judges, also

received the Saturday email from OPM, even though the court

system is not part of the executive branch, the Administrative

Office of the U.S. Courts confirmed.



The judiciary advised employees that no action should be

taken in response to the message, according to an email reviewed

by Reuters.



In some cases, employees were left unsure how to respond

even if they chose to do so.



Some lawyers, for instance, expressed concern that their

work is confidential.



Workers at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau also

received the email, according to people with knowledge of the

matter, even though they were all ordered to cease working since

early this month, leaving them with little to do.



Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a Republican,

said the email was "a complete overstep" that would be defeated

in court.



"From a management perspective, you can see what a clown car

this is right now," Christie said during ABC News' "The Week" on

Sunday.