This post was originally published on this site.
Elon Musk deepened the confusion and alarm of workers across the federal government Saturday by ordering them to summarize their accomplishments for the week, warning that a failure to do so would be taken as a resignation.
Shortly after Mr. Musk’s demand, which he posted on X, civil servants across the government received an email from the Office of Personnel Management with the subject line, “What did you do last week?”
The missive simultaneously hit inboxes across multiple agencies, rattling workers who had been rocked by layoffs in recent weeks and were unsure about whether to respond to Mr. Musk’s demand. Officials at some agencies, including the F.B.I. and the State Department, told their employees to pause responses to the email.
Mr. Musk’s mounting pressure on the federal work force came at the encouragement of President Trump, who has been trumpeting how the billionaire has upended the bureaucracy and on Saturday urged him to be even “more aggressive.”
In his post on X, Mr. Musk said employees who failed to answer the message would lose their jobs. However, that threat was not stated in the email itself.
“Please reply to this email with approx. 5 bullets of what you accomplished this week and cc your manager,” said the Office of Personnel Management message that went out to federal employees on Saturday afternoon. The email told employees to respond by midnight on Monday and not to include classified information.