Elon Musk, the billionaire advisor to Donald Trump, said Saturday that all US federal employees must justify their work or lose their jobs, hours after the president pushed him to be “more aggressive” in slashing government spending.
Musk — the world’s richest person and Trump’s biggest donor — has led the effort to fire swaths of the government workforce.
“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,” Musk wrote.
According to a copy of the email provided to AFP, federal workers were asked to submit “approx. 5 bullets of what you accomplished last week.”
The email came from the US Office of Personnel Management (OPM), with the subject line “What did you do last week?”. The deadline to reply was 11:59 pm Monday, though the message did not say failure to do so would lead to termination.
The OPM did not immediately reply to AFP’s request for comment on Saturday evening.
“A large number of good responses have been received already. These are the people who should be considered for promotion,” Musk posted on X after issuing the deadline.
The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the largest federal employee union, vowed to challenge any unlawful terminations in a statement from national president Everett Kelley.
Kelley slammed Musk and the Trump administration, saying the move showed “their utter disdain for federal employees and the critical services they provide to the American people.”
