The head of the US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Elon Musk, demanded that government employees report on the work done over the week to assess their efficiency and threatened dismissals for refusing to send a report letter. However, as The New York Times writes, this met the first real resistance: some of President Trump's senior supporters categorically reject the billionaire's demand for their employees to justify their work or be fired.
The US Office of Personnel Management notified federal agency leaders that they can ignore Elon Musk's requirement to dismiss employees who did not report to him on their work. A source from WP said that the office received some emails from employees who responded to Musk's demand, but the agency does not know what to do with them and does not plan to analyze them.
On February 22, Musk announced that federal employees would receive an email demanding to explain what exactly they were doing at work over the past week. As NBC notes, AI models will be entrusted with analyzing these emails. The billionaire stated that the absence of a response within two days would be considered a resignation. Soon, millions of government employees, including federal judges, received an email sent from an address belonging to the Office of Personnel Management, which stated that the "request" was voluntary. "This will not affect your job at the agency if you choose not to respond," the email sent to employees of the Department of Health and Human Services said.
Almost at the same time when employees were informed that they no longer needed to respond, Donald Trump intervened in the situation during the visit of French President Emmanuel Macron, calling Musk's demand "brilliant" and stating that employees who do not respond will be "fired."
Late Monday evening, Musk reiterated his demand. "At the president's discretion, they will be given another chance," he wrote on his social network, apparently referring to federal employees who did not respond to his letter by the initial deadline. And he added that if they do not respond a second time, it will lead to dismissal.
Also on Monday, the Office of Personnel Management sent out a new memorandum confirming the requirement and deadlines but allowed agency leaders to "exclude staff from this expectation at their discretion."
The reaction to the new DOGE requirements indicates that there is a limit to how far Musk, acting on behalf of Trump as the head of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency, can push the bureaucracy. The message split Trump's cabinet: leaders of some departments ordered their employees to comply, while others ignored the threat. Responses from several department heads made it clear that they were offended by the idea of an outsider trying to make their personnel decisions, and there were also concerns that employees might disclose classified information in their responses.
As reported by NYT, a senior official, chiefs of staff, and personnel directors of national security and intelligence agencies spent Saturday and Sunday trying to develop a coordinated response. The result of these efforts was that Kash Patel, recently appointed FBI director, ordered bureau employees to "suspend any reactions" to Musk's directive.
Over the weekend, many senior officials challenged Mr. Musk, urging their employees to "pause" or "not respond" to the demand to describe five tasks they completed the previous week. Employees of the State Department, Department of Defense, Department of Energy, Department of Homeland Security, and Department of Justice were categorically ordered not to comply.
At the same time, presidentially appointed leaders of the Treasury, General Services Administration, Department of Transportation, and Office of Management and Budget instructed employees to follow Musk's directives.
Photo: The New York Times