Ultimatum to federal workers raises tensions between Musk, White House staff

WASHINGTON - US President Donald Trump’s top aides are struggling to contain disputes at the White House and across the administration following billionaire Elon Musk's ultimatum to federal workers to list their accomplishments or lose their jobs, said three government officials familiar with the tensions.

Before the weekend, the White House felt confident that coordination had been improving between senior staffers and Mr Musk, two of those people said. In the first weeks of Mr Trump’s new administration, some White House officials had expressed concerns over the tactics of Mr Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), as Reuters previously reported. 

Chief of staff Susie Wiles had pulled Mr Musk aside to ask him to loop her in on his plans instead of surprising her team with major decisions, according to two separate sources with knowledge of the conversation who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the discussions. 

After that conversation, Mr Musk had begun keeping Ms Wiles informed of Doge’s activities on a daily basis, said one of the officials with direct knowledge of the matter. The White House believed it had Mr Musk’s agreement that he would seek approval from cabinet secretaries before he used the government’s human resources agency, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), to send emails directly to federal workers, two of the officials said. 

But the plan appears to have quickly fallen apart. After Mr Trump urged Mr Musk to “get more aggressive” with Doge in a post on his Truth Social site on Feb 22, OPM ordered the nation's 2.3 million civil-service workers in an e-mail to detail their accomplishments at work. The e-mail landed shortly after Mr Musk posted on his social media site X that not responding to the request would be viewed as a resignation, an ultimatum that sent shockwaves through Washington. 

It was not just workers and some Trump administration officials who said they were blindsided. The White House was again caught off guard, this time on one of Mr Musk’s most disruptive and potentially consequential moves, according to the three officials. 

Mr Trump and Ms Wiles did not sign off on the e-mail, those three people said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to talk to the media. Mr Musk, however, told a cabinet meeting on Feb 26 that he had asked Mr Trump if his team could “send out an e-mail to everyone, just saying: ‘What did you get done last week?’ The president said yes. So, I did that.”

Mr Musk and a Doge representative did not respond to requests for comment on their communications with the White House before the e-mail went out.

In response to questions from Reuters, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement the sources are “wrong” and that the “White House was not caught off guard”. Mr Trump signed off on Mr Musk’s e-mail idea, and Doge and the OPM gave the White House a heads up, she said.

She called the media’s “obsession” with Mr Trump, Mr Musk and Doge “pathetic” and said it proves the media is still out of touch with American voters. “If the media spent the same amount of time uncovering waste, fraud, and abuse in our federal government as they do writing fake stories trying to drive a wedge between Elon Musk and President Trump, maybe the American people would actually respect them,” Ms Leavitt said.

The productivity e-mail appears to have exposed the deepest fault lines to date between the Tesla chief executive and senior White House staffers since Mr Musk and his associates began dismantling programs and cutting the workforce. It also suggests an unprecedented degree of autonomy for Mr Musk, the world’s richest person, in his role of “special government employee”. 

After spending a quarter billion dollars to help elect Mr Trump in November 2024, Mr Musk became an important member of the transition, walking into meetings uninvited and lobbying for his preferred picks for cabinet positions, according to a half dozen sources close to the transition. 

Since Mr Trump took office on Jan 20, Mr Musk has sought to slash the US government in an operation shrouded in secrecy. It is unclear exactly who Doge employs, how the group operates and what actions it is taking inside government agencies. In a Feb 17 court filing in a case trying to block Doge’s access to the US Treasury Department systems, the White House said Mr Musk is not the outfit's administrator or even a Doge employee, describing him as a White House employee and senior adviser to Mr Trump. 

But he is clearly Doge’s driving force, something Mr Trump has said repeatedly when answering questions from reporters. 

Among White House staffers, frustration appears to be growing towards Mr Musk and his small, insular Doge team, many of them software engineers who have worked for Mr Musk's companies. 

Trump on board

Mr Trump, himself, however, continues to stand by Mr Musk both publicly and privately, according to two of the officials aware of Mr Trump’s comments, as well as Mr Trump’s own public statements. When asked on Feb 25 about the e-mail instructing federal workers to list their accomplishments, Mr Trump said, “it's somewhat voluntary. But it's also, if you don't answer, I guess you get fired”. 

One of the officials said that while Mr Trump did not sign off on the e-mail, he “likes letting Elon be Elon".

Ms Leavitt on Feb 25 said Mr Musk had come up with the idea for the e-mail, and worked with OPM to implement it. “And let me be very clear, the president and Elon and his entire cabinet are working as one unified team,” Ms Leavitt said. 

Signs of pushback against Mr Musk’s power are increasing, however. 

Some agencies have already told workers to ignore the e-mail. Mr Musk on Feb 25 gave federal workers “another chance” to respond to his ultimatum after the original Feb 24 deadline elapsed, suggesting some leeway. And worried cabinet heads have been calling Ms Wiles, who co-led Mr Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, about the e-mail, one of the officials said. 

The Trump administration on Feb 26 directed federal agencies to prepare for more large-scale layoffs. Already, about 100,000 workers have taken buyouts or been fired after Doge was dispatched to gut federal staffing and spending.

Questions about Mr Musk's role and Doge are at the heart of multiple lawsuits seeking to block them from accessing government systems and cut programs. Many suits allege that Mr Musk and Doge are violating the Constitution by wielding the kind of vast power that only comes from agencies created through the US Congress or appointments made with confirmation by the US Senate.

At least two cabinet members have privately expressed frustration with Doge's cuts because they fear losing too many employees and control over their departments, according to one Republican source who spoke directly with the two members. One of those cabinet members privately complained to the White House about the Feb 22 ultimatum e-mail, said the source.

That person, along with a Republican consultant with ties to the Trump administration, said they had recently spoken to a total of six members of Congress who expressed concern to them about Doge overreaching.

“But they’re all taking their cues from Trump,” the Republican consultant said. “Until he throws Musk off the cliff, they won’t do it.” REUTERS