US government workers received an email Saturday afternoon asking them to list their achievements from last week and resign.
The email comes after Trump’s billionaire best friend Elon Musk posted to X “Immediately receive an email requesting that employees understand what’s “first.”
“A failure to respond is considered a resignation,” he wrote.
Musk, the head of the so-called Office of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has led external efforts to actively cut government spending through funding cuts and layoffs.
The email arrived in my inbox shortly after Trump spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). The message comes with the subject line “What did you do last week?” From the sender listed as HR.
The Federal Government Human Resources Agency, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), confirmed that the email was authentic in a statement to CBS, the BBC’s US news partner.
“As part of the Trump administration’s commitment to an efficient and accountable federal workforce, OPM gives employees a brief summary of what they’ve done before turning managers into CC by the end of last Monday. We ask that it be provided.” “The agency will decide on the next step.”
In a copy of the email obtained by the BBC, employees were asked by midnight Monday to explain their past week’s performance in five bullet points, without disclosing the classified information.
The message did not mention whether a failure to respond would be considered a resignation.
The US Federation of Employees, the largest union representing federal employees, criticised the message as “cruel and rude” and challenged the “illegal termination” of federal employees. I swear.
“Once again, Elon Musk and the Trump administration have shown their total disdain for federal employees and the important services they provide to the American people,” Union Chairman Everett Kelly said in a statement. .
On Sunday morning, Musk wrote on social media platform X that “many responses have already been received,” adding, “These are the people that should be considered for promotions.”
A few hours later, Musk stated that the move was important as “several people who were supposed to be working for the government are doing little work and have not checked email at all.” Ta.
Musk goes on to believe that Doge believes that “identities of non-existent or dead people are being used to collect wages,” and that he claims “completely fraud” without evidence .
Musk has repeatedly made fraud claims when defending team work across various government departments and functions.
However, on Saturday, there appeared to be differences of opinion among government department heads about the latest email.
Newly confirmed FBI director Kash Patel told employees via email that they needed to “pause responses” to the OPM memo.
“The FBI representative may have received an email from OPM requesting information,” Patel wrote in a message obtained by CBS News. “The FBI is responsible for the entire review process through the director’s office and will follow the FBI procedures to carry out reviews.”
The State Department said it would send a similar message to employees and respond on behalf of the department.
“Employees are not obligated to report activities outside of departmental headquarters,” said an email from Tibor Nagy, executive director of management, acquired by US media.
The United States Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), a union representing many government employees, was critical of emails and threatened legal action if an employee was illegally fired.
“The hundreds of thousands of veterans wearing second uniforms in civil servants to privileged and unelected billionaires with this touch who have never performed an hour-long run. It is cruel and rude to be forced to justify his duties, public service that is honest with his life,” said AFGE President Everett Kelly.
Earlier in the day, Trump promoted the cut and told a crowd of CPAC supporters that federal employees’ jobs were inadequate as they work at least in some eras.
“We’re removing all unnecessary, incompetent, corrupt bureaucrats from federal workers,” the president told the crowd at an annual meeting held outside Washington on Saturday afternoon.
“We want the government to be smaller and more efficient,” he added. “We want to keep the best people, and we’re not going to keep the worst people.”
Elon Musk’s team forced a wide range of changes to the US federal infrastructure through Doge and approved it from the White House.
Thousands of government officials from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the Pentagon and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and other agencies have been fired in recent weeks.
This email reflects the treatment of mask employees. He is now called X in 2022 after he acquired Twitter, a social media platform. As staff reduced under ownership, he issued a finalist that included committing to becoming “very hardcore.” Work or resignation.
Trump has repeatedly praised Musk’s snippets of government.
In the true social post, Trump said Musk is doing a “great job” to reduce the size of the federal government and hopes he will “become more aggressive.”
