Elon Musk, Donald Trump’s billionaire advisor, warned Saturday that all US federal employees must defend their work or lose their jobs, hours after the president urged him to be “more aggressive” in reducing government expenditure.
Musk, the world’s richest person and Trump’s largest fundraiser, has spearheaded the drive to fire large portions of government workers.
“All government employees will shortly receive an email requesting that they explain what they accomplished last week. Failure to respond will be considered a resignation,” Musk said.
According to a copy of the email provided to AFP, federal employees were requested to provide “approx. 5 bullets of what you accomplished last week.”
The email was from the US Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and had the subject line “What did you do last week?” The deadline for responding was 11:59 p.m. Monday, but the notification did not specify whether failing to do so would result in termination.
The OPM did not immediately respond to the AFP’s request for comment on Saturday evening.
In a statement released on Sunday, February 23, 2025, national president Everett Kelley of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the largest federal employee union, vowed to challenge any wrongful terminations.
Kelley lambasted Musk and the Trump administration, saying the move demonstrated “their utter disdain for federal employees and the critical services they provide to the American people.”
“It is cruel and disrespectful to hundreds of thousands of veterans who are wearing their second uniform in the civil service to be forced to justify their job duties to this out-of-touch, privileged, unelected billionaire who has never performed one single hour of honest public service in his life,” he said.
Several government employees told AFP that their agencies encouraged them not to respond to the email and to wait for additional instructions, which was echoed by the National Treasury Employees Union.
– ‘More aggressive’ –
Earlier Saturday, Trump stated on his Truth Social platform that Musk is “doing a great job, but I would like to see him get more aggressive.”
“Remember, we have a country to save,” the Republican leader said.
Trump has appointed the software entrepreneur as head of the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) advisory committee, tasked with reducing public expenditure and combating suspected waste and corruption.
In the most recent cuts revealed Friday, the US Defence Department plans to reduce its civilian personnel by at least 5% beginning next week.
Trump’s administration has already begun terminating a large number of probationary federal employees.
DOGE is a free-floating organisation led by Musk, but its cost-cutting drive has been greeted with opposition on multiple fronts and mixed court verdicts.
A judge on Thursday refused a union’s request to temporarily freeze the firing of thousands of people.
Musk said last week that he would cooperate with Trump as long as he “can be helpful,” dismissing concerns about conflicts of interest stemming from the tycoon’s government contracts.
“Elon is doing a great job,” Trump told a conference of conservative activists on Saturday, going over what he called “some of the flagrant scams” that had been discovered.
“We love Elon, don’t we? “He’s a character,” Trump said. “People asked, what official role does he hold? I said, ‘Patriot’.”
Musk stated last week that DOGE was making its operations public on its website and that the transparency would hold him accountable.
