‘What did you do last week?: US federal agencies tell employees not to reply to Musk’s email as confusion mounts

WASHINGTON, Feb 24 — Multiple US agencies have told employees not to respond immediately to a demand by President Donald Trump’s adviser Elon Musk to list their accomplishments in the past week or be fired, as a chaotic campaign to cull the federal workforce 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 — a possible sign of tension between members of the Republican administration and the world’s richest person in his campaign to slash the 2.3 million-strong federal 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 Defence Department — long a top Republican priority — to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, where all staff members 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. While there is bipartisan agreement that the US government, which carries US$36 trillion (RM158 trillion) in debt, would benefit from reform, Musk’s tumultuous approach has drawn widespread criticism, including from voters in some Republican-dominated areas.

Federal workers on Saturday evening received an email instructing them to detail the work they did during the previous week by 11.59pm ET today (0459 GMT/8.59am Malaysian time tomorrow), 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 Defence, 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. Workers at intelligence agencies likewise will be told not to respond, according to a source.

“To be clear — this is irregular, unexpected, and warrants further validation,” wrote a senior executive at the National Centres for Environmental Information, an agency that manages environmental data and is part of the Commerce Department.

Some officials welcomed the move. Ed Martin, Trump’s nominee for US 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 US 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 social media yesterday that it did not believe Musk has the authority to fire employees who do 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.

Spokespersons for 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 his social media platform X called the email “a very basic pulse check” and displayed a fictional list he had generated using artificial intelligence.

“EXTREMELY troubling that some parts of government think this is TOO MUCH!! What is wrong with them??” Musk wrote.

US 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. “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 US Courts said.

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 on ABC News. — Reuters