Elon Musk says he’s giving federal employees a second chance to respond to his demand for a list of recent accomplishments, and that failure to respond could result in termination.
The ultimatum sparked confusion and a clarification from the White House on Tuesday since the Office of Personnel Management told agencies that a response about their weekly work product is voluntary and failure to do so wouldn’t be considered a resignation.
“The agency heads will determine the best practices for their employers at their specific agencies,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said.
She also defended the directive from Mr. Musk, saying it wasn’t a tall order to list five feats.
“I actually participated in it myself. It took me about a minute and a half to think of five things I did last week. I do five things in about 10 minutes,” Ms. Leavitt said.
Hours later, President Trump suggested there could be eventual penalties for failing to respond.
“It’s somewhat voluntary, but it’s also I guess if you don’t answer, I guess you get fired,” Mr. Trump said in the Oval Office. “Nobody knows who’s working for the government, who’s not.”
Mr. Musk, the billionaire owner of X and CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, is swiftly cutting federal spending and payroll as head of the Department of Government Efficiency under Mr. Trump.
Mr. Musk issued a justify-your-job directive over the weekend, soon after the president encouraged him to be more “aggressive” in his cost-cutting efforts.
OPM emailed federal employees shortly after Mr. Musk’s tweet that had the subject line “What did you do last week?”
The directive sparked a lawsuit from unionized government workers and mass confusion at agencies as some department heads told workers to ignore the email and some said workers should comply.
OPM said Monday that responses would be voluntary, only for Mr. Musk to contradict that hours later.
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“Subject to the discretion of the President, they will be given another chance,” Mr. Musk wrote. “Failure to respond a second time will result in termination.”
Mr. Trump said Mr. Musk’s directive was “great” and a good way to find out who was engaged on the job.
Yet workers say it’s part of a pattern of harassment from Mr. Musk and that responses will be used to slash their jobs or curtail their funding.
“It was nothing but a cynical attempt to demean federal workers and terrorize them into quitting,” said Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees. “To be clear, federal employees report to the agencies who employ them through established chains of command. They do not report to OPM, DOGE and definitely not to Elon Musk.”
Mr. Musk’s exact role has stirred controversy. He is viewed as “a special government employee” who serves as an adviser to the president and did not have to go through Senate confirmation. He is expected to attend Mr. Trump’s first Cabinet meeting on Wednesday.
But the administration has stopped short of calling him the DOGE “administrator,” sparking confusion among judges and others reviewing his actions.
“There are career officials at DOGE, there are political appointees at DOGE. I’m not going to review the name of that individual from this podium,” Ms. Leavitt said of the administrator role.
More than 20 civil service staffers working on Mr. Musk’s government efficiency project resigned Tuesday over fears that slash-and-burn tactics are dismantling “critical public services.”
“We swore to serve the American people and uphold our oath to the Constitution across presidential administrations,” the staffers wrote. “However, it has become clear that we can no longer honor those commitments.”
Mr. Musk said the workers were Democratic loyalists who would not have lasted on the team.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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