Elon Musk's emailed ultimatum that federal workers justify their jobs in five bullet points in a return email by midnight Monday was "ingenious," President Trump said Monday. He endorsed Musk's threat, saying, "If you don't answer, you're sort of semi-fired or you're fired." At roughly the same time, the president's personnel office was telling agency bosses in a conference call that they can ignore Musk's demand, the New York Times reports. Employees in different departments had received varying directives since Musk sent his email Saturday. "No employee is obligated to report their activities outside of their department chain of command," a top State Department official wrote to the staff.
Trump said the pushback by some of his Cabinet members did not reflect a break with Musk, suggesting State, the FBI, and other agencies might not want to release information about their day-to-day. "That was done in a friendly manner," Trump said, per Politico, adding, "They're just saying there are some people that you don't want to really have them tell you what they're working on last week." Sometimes-conflicting guidance was sent to employees during their weekend and Monday. "It's massive whiplash all the time," a Justice Department employee said. The EPA sent out sample responses Monday to help employees, per NBC News. Here's a look at the instructions staffs have received:
- Treasury, General Services Administration, Department of Transportation, Office of Management and Budget, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: Comply.
- Commerce: Respond only to your manager.
- Health and Human Services: Some staff members were first told to comply, while others were told not to. On Sunday afternoon, everyone was told to hold off.
- State, Defense, Energy, Homeland Security, Justice: Don't comply. "DHS management will respond on behalf of the Department and all its component offices," the agency's staff was told, per the Hill.
- FBI: "Please pause any responses."
- Office of National Intelligence: Don't answer.
- Agriculture: Compliance is voluntary.
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The Office of Personnel Management said Monday it has no plans to review the responses it's already received, in a reflection of the chaos. "There's a full revolt going on right now," Doug Holtz-Eakin of the American Action Forum, a center-right think tank, told the Washington Post, adding that "Cabinet heads want to run their own agencies." (More Elon Musk stories.)
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