Musk’s new ultimatum spurs fresh confusion among US government workers

WASHINGTON - Federal workers faced fresh uncertainty about their futures on Feb 25, after tech billionaire Elon Musk gave them “another chance” to respond to his ultimatum that they justify their jobs or risk termination – contradicting guidance from some Trump administration officials that the request was voluntary.

The confusing back-and-forth has rippled through the federal bureaucracy, with some agencies instructing workers to comply, while others have not.

It has become a test of how much power Mr Musk wields over the US government’s operations as he pursues an unprecedented cost-cutting campaign with the backing of President Donald Trump.

Twenty-one workers resigned from his so-called Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) in protest on Feb 25, saying they refused to aid the downsizing effort.

“We will not use our skills as technologists to compromise core government systems, jeopardise Americans’ sensitive data or dismantle critical public services,” the employees wrote in a resignation posted online.

Doge did not respond to a request for comment on the resignations.

The workers, who include data scientists, product managers, designers and the division head of IT, were employed in an office that was known as the United States Digital Service before Mr Musk took it over and renamed it after a favourite cryptocurrency.

The resignations added to the drama surrounding Mr Musk’s e-mail demand, which was sent to employees across the government

asking them to summarise their accomplishments of the past week

by Feb 24.

In a post on X, the social media site Mr Musk owns, the tech billionaire asserted that failure to respond would be considered a resignation.

With the deadline approaching on Feb 24, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the government’s human resources arm, told workers

they could ignore the e-mail.

Mr Musk, the chief executive of electric vehicle maker Tesla and rocket company SpaceX, was undeterred.

“Subject to the discretion of the President, they will be given another chance. Failure to respond a second time will result in termination,” Mr Musk wrote on X late on Feb 24, without setting a new deadline.

Prior to the new OPM guidance, Mr Trump said workers who did not respond would be “sort of semi-fired”, adding to the uncertainty.

Asked on Feb 25 whether the renewed threat would be carried out against non-compliant employees, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Mr Trump would defer to Cabinet secretaries’ guidance for their individual workforces.

Working as a team

The head-spinning developments exposed new fissures within Mr Trump’s administration over Mr Musk’s blunt-force approach.

Even some Trump loyalists, such as Mr Kash Patel, the newly installed Federal Bureau of Investigation chief, told their employees to hold off on replying.

Ms Leavitt rejected any suggestion of rifts within the administration, saying everyone was “working as one team”.

Mr Musk will attend Mr Trump’s Cabinet meeting on Feb 26, she said.

Employees at several agencies said they received conflicting guidance from leadership, leaving them unsure how to proceed.

The Department of Health and Human Services advised employees that if they chose to reply, they should refrain from mentioning specific drugs or contracts, according to an e-mail reviewed by Reuters.

“Assume that what you write will be read by malign foreign actors and tailor your response accordingly,” the e-mail said.

The acting director of OPM sent an e-mail to the agency’s staff that said responding was voluntary “but strongly encouraged”.

The Trump administration plans this week to gut a unit within OPM charged with keeping track of all federal government human resource transactions, including hiring, promotions, retirements and separations, two people familiar with the matter said.

The unit will be slashed from 64 people to just under a dozen, the people said.

OPM did not respond to a request for comment.

Mr Musk’s downsizing initiative has led to a layoff of more than 20,000 workers, with another 75,000 accepting buyouts, and the effort continued to accelerate on Feb 25.

There are about 2.3 million civilian federal employees.

The vast majority of fired workers had been in their jobs for less than a year, making them easier to lay off under civil service rules.

But OPM has begun

firing career workers within its own agency,

in what sources told Reuters is intended to serve as a template for a second round of mass layoffs across the government.

To that end, Internal Revenue Service (IRS) executives have been told to brace themselves for another round of job cuts beyond the nearly 12,000 IRS employees already slated to be terminated, two people familiar with the matter said, referring to the roughly 7,000 probationary employees set to be fired and 5,000 employees taking a buyout.

The cuts so far amount to more than 10 per cent of the IRS workforce.

Mr Gavin Kliger, the 25-year-old software engineer dispatched by Mr Musk to scrutinise IRS operations, has told executives he believes the agency can meet its mission with far fewer employees, the sources said.

The Interior Department on Feb 25 received a directive from OPM saying that bureaus such as the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the Bureau of Indian Affairs should prepare plans for reductions in their workforce ranging from 10 per cent to 40 per cent, a source from the department told Reuters. REUTERS