US federal agencies resist Elon Musk’s job justification demand

WASHINGTON - Multiple US federal agencies told employees not to respond immediately to a demand by President Donald Trump’s adviser Elon Musk to

list their accomplishments in the last week or be fired

, as a chaotic campaign to cull the bureaucracy pushes forward.

Trump administration-appointed officials at the FBI and State Department sent their staff e-mails telling them not to respond outside their chains of command, in a possible sign of tension between members of the Republican administration and the world’s richest person in his campaign to cut down the government’s 2.3 million member civilian workforce.

“The FBI, through the office of the director, is in charge of all our review processes,” said FBI director Kash Patel, a Trump appointee, in an e-mail to staff seen by Reuters.

Mr Musk leads the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, which in the first weeks of Trump’s administration has laid off more than 20,000 workers and offered buyouts to another 75,000, across wide swaths of the government from the Defence Department – long a top Republican priority – to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, where all staff have been ordered to halt work.

The frantic pace has led the federal government in some cases to rush to rehire workers who perform critical functions like securing the nation’s nuclear arsenal and trying to fight the worsening bird flu outbreak, which has caused egg prices to spike higher.

While there is bipartisan agreement that the US government, which carries US$36 trillion (S$48 trillion) in debt, would benefit from reform, Mr Musk’s tumultuous approach has drawn widespread criticism, including from voters in some Republican areas.

Federal workers on Feb 22 evening received an e-mail instructing them to detail the work they did during the previous week by 11.59pm on Feb 24, shortly after Mr Musk posted on his X social media site that failing to respond would be taken as a resignation.

The subject of the e-mail read, “What did you do last week?“ and came from a human resources address in the Office of Personnel Management, but did not include Mr Musk’s threat of termination.

Workers at the departments of Defence, Homeland Security, Education and Commerce, as well as at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the National Institutes of Health and the Internal Revenue Service also were told not to respond pending further guidance, according to sources and e-mails reviewed by Reuters.

“To be clear – this is irregular, unexpected, and warrants further validation,” a senior executive at the National Centres for Environmental Information, an agency that manages environmental data and is part of the Commerce Department, wrote.

Some officials welcomed the move. Mr Ed Martin, Mr Trump’s nominee for US Attorney in Washington, who is serving in an interim capacity, praised Mr Musk and Doge in an e-mail response.

But other offices within the Justice Department, including the executive office that supports all US attorneys and the department’s civil division, told employees not to reply pending additional information.

Employees at the Drug Enforcement Administration, part of the Justice Department, were told to respond, according to an e-mail seen by Reuters.

Union questions Musk’s authority

The largest federal workers’ union, the American Federation of Government Employees, wrote on X on Feb 23 that it did not believe Mr Musk had the authority to fire employees who did not respond and would formally request that OPM rescind the message.

Meanwhile, the union advised members to ask their supervisors directly whether to reply and to follow their guidance.

The e-mail left some employees even more frustrated and worried after weeks of uncertainty about their future.

“I really wonder when someone is going to say enough,” one IRS employee told Reuters.

Media offices at the Commerce, Justice, Education and Treasury departments, as well as at the FDIC and NIH, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. An FBI spokesperson declined to comment, and a State Department spokesperson referred questions to the White House.

Mr Musk on X on Feb 23 called the e-mail “a very basic pulse check” and displayed a fictional list he had generated using artificial intelligence.

“EXTREMELY troubling that some parts of government think this is TOO MUCH!! What is wrong with them??” Mr Musk wrote.

Senator John Curtis, a Republican from Utah, said he supports the Trump administration’s efforts to reduce government spending but that Mr Musk should take a more humane approach.

“If I could say one thing to Elon Musk, it’s please put a dose of compassion in this,” Mr Curtis said on CBS News’ Face the Nation. “These are real people. These are real lives. These are mortgages. It’s a false narrative to say we have to cut and you have to be cruel to do it as well. We can do both.”

Some federal judiciary employees, including judges, also received the Feb 22 e-mail from OPM, even though the court system is not part of the executive branch, the Administrative Office of the US Courts confirmed.

The judiciary advised employees that no action should be taken in response to the message, according to an email reviewed by Reuters.

In some cases, employees were left unsure how to respond even if they chose to do so.

Some lawyers, for instance, expressed concern that their work is confidential.

Workers at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau also received the e-mail, according to people with knowledge of the matter, even though they were all ordered to cease working since early this month, leaving them with little to do.

Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a Republican, said the e-mail was “a complete overstep” that would be defeated in court.

“From a management perspective, you can see what a clown car this is right now,” Mr Christie said during ABC News’ The Week on Feb 23.  REUTERS