On Saturday, February 22, Elon Musk issued an ultimatum to all federal employees: send a list of things they’d accomplished over the last week, or risk losing their jobs. The ultimatum was issued in order to work toward the Trump Administration’s goal to downsize the federal government, and received a considerable amount of backlash from agency officials.
During the first month of Trump’s second term, thousands of government employees have been asked to leave office. As part of his administration, Elon Musk was appointed as head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in order to reduce federal spending. On Saturday, US President Donald Trump posted the following statement on X:
“Elon is doing a great job, but I would like to see him get more aggressive.”
In response, Musk sent the email, telling government officials that they had until 11:59 pm on the following Monday to submit a list of work they’d accomplished over the previous week. If they failed to reply, he said he’d assume their resignation. While Musk has used similar policies within his own companies, such a move has been unprecedented in the US government.
In a complaint to the Office of Personnel Management, federal workers declared, “no OPM rule, regulation, policy, or program has ever, in United States history, purported to require all federal workers to submit reports to OPM.”
In response to Musk’s demands, government agencies have different courses of action. While some departments, like the Department of Education, encouraged their employees to respond, others, like the State Department and FBI, outright told their employees not to reply.
The Department of Health and Human Services, for example, assured that they didn’t expect their employees to respond. If they were to reply, however, the department provided more specific instructions:
“Assume that what you write will be read by malign foreign actors,” they instructed in an email to their employees, “and tailor your response accordingly.”
Since February 22, considerable backlash has erupted toward Musk. The State Democracy Defenders Fund even updated their lawsuit against OPM on Monday, and claimed that by threatening mass firings, Musk had violated the law. Trump, meanwhile, continues to support Musk’s policies.
“I thought it was great because we have people that don’t show up to work and nobody even knows if they work for the government,” he claimed. “What he’s doing is saying ‘Are you actually working.’”
After the backlash toward Musk’s first email, he decided to give federal employees “another chance to justify their jobs.” He again threatened termination if they refused to comply, without a specified deadline of submission. The impacts of this second announcement have yet to be seen.
