Trump Backs Musk’s Demand That Federal Employees Document Accomplishments Or Resign

Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and senior adviser to President Donald Trump, emailed federal employees on Saturday instructing them to inform the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) of their accomplishments over the past week. According to the email from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the deadline to reply is Monday at midnight.

The request came with the subject line, “What did you do last week?” asking recipients to reply with five examples of what they got done last week, excluding any classified information. As Trump’s chosen leader to run DOGE and spearhead cuts to the federal workforce, Musk said in a post on X that the directive is “Consistent with President [Trump’s] instructions.” 

“Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation,” Musk wrote. He continued in a separate post, “The bar is very low here. An email with some bullet points that make any sense at all is acceptable! Should take less than 5 mins to write.” 

Over the weekend, Trump posted to Truth Social saying, “ELON IS DOING A GREAT JOB, BUT I WOULD LIKE TO SEE HIM GET MORE AGGRESSIVE.”

Lawmakers in both major political parties said Musk’s mandate may be illegal, and unions have threatened to sue.

At least three agencies, including the FBI, the State Department, Homeland Security and the Pentagon, instructed their employees not to respond. On Sunday morning, the Department of Health and Human Services, led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., instructed its 80,000 employees to comply. The message came shortly after acting general counsel Sean Keveney had ordered some agencies not to.

“No employee is obligated to report their activities outside of their Department chain of command,” read an email sent to State Department employee. 

Even Kash Patel, the FBI director and Trump loyalist, instructed agency staff to “please pause any responses,” saying that reviews of the FBI are to be conducted following FBI procedures.

“I don’t think this is a request that is that difficult,” Sen. John Curtis (R-Utah) said on CBS’s Face the Nation. “We don’t need to be so cold and hard, and let’s put a little compassion and, quite frankly, dignity in this as well.”

DOGE’s activities have raised eyebrows including the revelation that a 19-year-old staffer called “Big Balls” has been given access to classified government data.