Elon Musk Draws Ire Telling Federal Employees to Justify Their Jobs Over Email or Resign

Elon Musk caused alarm among federal employees and drew ire over an email sent on Saturday requesting that employees summarize their work for the week, and warning on social media that a failure to do so would be taken as a resignation.

The email—which boasted the subject line “What did you do last week?”—was sent from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to workers in various government departments, including the FBI, the State Department, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Veterans Affairs Department, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), according to the New York Times. “Please reply to this email with approx. 5 bullets of what you accomplished this week and cc your manager,” the email read, telling employees to respond by midnight on Monday.

In a post shared on his social media platform X, Musk, the head of the newly-created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), said: “Consistent with President Donald Trump's instructions, all federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week. Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.” However, there was no mention of resignation in the email sent to employees.

TIME has reached out to the White House for comment and clarification.

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The OPM email spearheaded by Musk has drawn anger from advocates, unions, and government officials.

Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), released a statement against the emails.

“It is cruel and disrespectful to hundreds of thousands of veterans who are wearing their second uniform in the civil service to be forced to justify their job duties to this out-of-touch, privileged, unelected billionaire,” Kelley said. He went on to add that the AFGE would “challenge any unlawful terminations” of federal employees.

Doreen Greenwald, president of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), which represents employees from 37 different departments and offices, said in a statement that the email “should be called out as completely un-American,” according to CNN.

“NTEU’s members are professional civil servants and will not back down to these blatant attempts to attack a vital resource for the American public,” she said.

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Republicans have shown varying levels of support and criticism over Musk’s directive. On Sunday’s episode of ABC’s This Week, Republican Rep. Mike Lawler of New York was asked to share his reaction to the email and Musk’s comment that failing to respond would be tantamount to a resignation. 

Lawler said: “I don’t know how that’s necessarily feasible. Obviously, a lot of federal employees are under union contract.”

He then went on to show his support for Musk’s efforts to downsize the government.

“There’s no question, as the Department of Government Efficiency moves ahead, what they are seeking to do is ensure that every agency and department is effectively and efficiently doing their job,” Lawler told host Martha Raddatz. “The task at hand for Elon Musk and DOGE, at the direction of President Trump, is to find efficiencies and savings, and make sure that our federal workforce is doing their jobs."

Also appearing on This Week, fellow Republican and the former Governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, said that Musk’s survey is a “complete overstep.”

“As with everybody’s employment, things vary from week to week,” Christie said. “From a management perspective, you can see what a clown car this is right now.”

Meanwhile, during an appearance on CBS' Face the Nation, Utah Republican Senator John Curtis said: "If I could say one thing to Elon Musk, it's please put a dose of compassion in this. These are real people, real lives, mortgages. It's a false narrative to say we have to cut and we have to be cruel to do it."

Appearing on the same show, Maryland Democrat Senator Chris Van Hollen also shared his perspective. "There's no article in the Constitution that gives Elon Musk that authority," he said. "The actions he's taking are illegal, and we need to shut down this illegal operation."

Musk appeared to address the mounting criticism early Sunday, via posts on X. He stated that the email responses should take “less than 5 mins” and that many “good responses” from employees have already been received. “These are the people who should be considered for promotion,” he said.

The DOGE leader also called the highly-discussed email “a very basic pulse check.” He then proceeded to conduct a poll on his X account, in which he asked: "Should all federal employees be required to send a short email with some basic bullet points about what they accomplished last week?" The poll received over 1.2 millions responses, with 70.6% voting yes.

Musk's actions came soon after President Trump posted on his own social media platform, Truth Social, on Saturday that Musk should be “more aggressive” in his efforts to downsize the federal government—a goal that has already led to mass layoffs and the ceasing of many government contracts.

In a response sent on X, Musk said of Trump’s feedback: “Will do, Mr. President!”

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According to an NBC report, Trump’s newly-confirmed FBI Director Kash Patel told FBI employees in an email to “pause any responses” to Musk’s directive, expressing that they will go through their own performance review process.

“The FBI, through the Office of the Director, is in charge of all our review processes, and will conduct reviews in accordance with FBI procedures,” the message from Patel reportedly read.

And Patel is seemingly not alone. Per the New York Times, Tulsi Gabbard, the director of the Office Of National Intelligence, instructed officers in the department not to respond to Musk’s email. Elsewhere, an email said to be from the State Department leadership to its employees had a similar message: that leadership would respond to the OPM email on behalf of the department, and they would evaluate their own employees.

Department heads from the Pentagon, the IRS, FEMA, and NOAA, are also reportedly seeking guidance before they instruct their employees to respond, according to emails obtained by ABC News.