Several US agencies are advising their employees to disregard an email from Elon Musk, an advisor to President Donald Trump, demanding that they list their accomplishments from the previous week under threat of dismissal. This comes amidst a turbulent effort to reduce the federal workforce.
Trump administration officials at agencies such as the FBI and the State Department have sent emails to their staff instructing them not to respond outside of their usual chain of command. This could indicate friction between Republican administration members and Musk regarding his campaign to reduce the 2.3 million-strong federal workforce.
“The FBI, through the office of the director, is in charge of all our review processes,” FBI Director Kash Patel, a Trump appointee, stated in an email to staff seen by Reuters.
Musk is in charge of the Department of Government Efficiency. In the early weeks of the Trump administration, this department has laid off over 20,000 workers and offered buyouts to another 75,000. These actions have affected various parts of the government, from the Defence Department to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, where all staff members have been ordered to cease work.
This pace has, in some instances, led the federal government to quickly rehire workers who perform critical functions. Examples include securing the nation’s nuclear arsenal and combating the increasing bird flu outbreak, which has caused egg prices to rise.
There is bipartisan agreement that the US government could benefit from reform, but Musk’s disruptive approach has faced widespread criticism, including from voters in some Republican-dominated areas.
Last weekend, federal workers received an email, shortly after Musk posted on X (formerly Twitter) that failure to respond would be interpreted as a resignation. The email instructed them to detail their work from the previous week by 11:59 p.m. ET on Monday (0459 GMT on Tuesday).
The email’s subject was “What did you do last week?” and it originated from a human resources address in the Office of Personnel Management, but did not include Musk’s threat of termination.
Workers at several U.S. agencies such as Homeland Security, Education and Commerce, Defence, as well as at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the National Institutes of Health and the Internal Revenue Service, were also told not to respond pending further guidance.
“To be clear – this is irregular, unexpected, and warrants further validation,” a senior executive at the National Centers for Environmental Information said.