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Elon Musk warned U.S. government employees that they must disclose the job they are doing in the past week or face sacks.
The billionaire said on Saturday that “consistent with President @RealdonaldTrump’s instructions, all federal employees will soon receive an email asking for an idea of what they did last week.”
The de facto leader of the so-called government efficiency department added: “Failure to respond would be considered a resignation”.
Shortly afterwards, the U.S. government’s human resources department sent a memorandum that was aggregated by several people into the Financial Times, ordering government staff to respond to about five bullets to understand what they achieved before midnight on Monday.
It also advises employees not to send any confidential materials in their responses.
The move responds to the strategy Musk used during his takeover of Twitter — shortly after Donald Trump’s position, he said the billionaire “does well, but I want to see him become more compatible Aggressive.”
Musk’s governor has destroyed key government departments, cut hundreds of contracts and suspended tens of thousands of employees.
The Trump administration faces some strong opposition to the firing of veterans and cybersecurity personnel and has been forced to re-employ employees at agencies responsible for protecting U.S. nuclear weapons.
The Governor also offers federal employees the opportunity to resign if they don’t want to return to the office full-time, the White House predicts that up to 200,000 people will be accepted. The plan closed earlier this month, eventually attracting 77,000 resignations.
On Friday, Donald Trump, along with five other top Pentagon officials, fired General CQ Brown as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Department of Defense also plans to reduce 5,400 trial workers starting next week.
Saturday’s email demand came from the Government’s Personnel Management Office and did not repeat Musk’s online termination of threats to avoid compliance.
But Everett Kelley, president of the U.S. Government Employees Federation, said his organization would “challenge any illegal terminations… federal employees.”
“Again, Elon Musk and the Trump administration show that they are totally disdainful of federal employees and their critical services to the American people,” he said.
“It is cruel and disrespectful for thousands of veterans who wear a second uniform among civil servants and are forced to perform their duties for this touch, privileged, unelected billionaire. They never performed an hour of honest public service throughout his life.”
A spokesperson for the Office of Personnel Management did not respond to a request for comment.
