Elon Musk announced on Saturday that all federal workers would receive an email asking them about their productivity over the past week — a request that aligned with the Department of Government Efficiency’s effort to reduce government waste.
The email read, “What did you do last week?”
‘I don’t think anybody expected things to escalate quite as quickly as this.’
“Please reply to this email with approx. 5 bullets of what you accomplished last week and cc your manager,” it continued. “Deadline is this Monday at 11:59pmEST.”
It directed federal employees not to respond with any classified information.
Musk stated on Saturday, “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,” he declared.
Musk clarified the request in a separate post.
“To be clear, the bar is very low here,” he explained. “An email with some bullet points that make any sense at all is acceptable! Should take less than 5 mins to write.”
Further, on Monday morning, Musk issued a stark warning to federal employees who refuse to return to in-office work.
“Those who ignored President Trump’s executive order to return to work have now received over a month’s warning,” he wrote on X. “Starting this week, those who still fail to return to office will be placed on administrative leave.”
U.S. Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) attacked Musk for expecting government employees to prove their productivity.
“This is the ultimate d**k boss move from Musk – except he isn’t even the boss, he’s just a d**k,” Smith wrote.
Musk responded to Smith, asking, “What did you get done last week?”
Smith told Musk, “I hate to break it to you but you aren’t my boss. I answer to the people of Minnesota.”
“But since you bring it up, I spent last week fighting to stop tax breaks for billionaires like you, paid for by defunding health care for moms and babies,” she added.
Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees, also responded to Musk’s productivity check-in request.
“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 who has never performed one single hour of honest public service in his life,” Kelley said.
Doreen Greenwald, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, called Musk’s request “completely unAmerican.”
A federal employee told CNN that the request was “insulting,” “callous, and calculating.” The employee also called it a “low-down tactic to get rid of employees they haven’t been able to touch yet.”
Another worker told the news outlet, “Personally, I’m afraid to not respond by the deadline based on Elon’s tweets that nonresponse would be considered a resignation.”
Justin Chen, president of the American Federation of Government Employees local 1003, told the Guardian, “I don’t think anybody expected things to escalate quite as quickly as this.”
A worker with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission told the news outlet, “It’s been madness.”
“Musk sends these from this sketchy email they set up days ago, almost always after 8 p.m. They seem clearly designed to disturb and scare people, among all of the things they actually say, which are clear threats,” the individual stated.
Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!
News, Elon musk, Donald trump, Trump, Department of government efficiency, Doge, Government waste, Politics
