A number of Trump administration officers main federal companies urged their workers to not adjust to Elon Musk’s order to summarize their accomplishments for the previous week or be faraway from their positions, whilst Mr. Musk doubled down on the demand over the weekend.
Because the directive ricocheted throughout the federal authorities on Saturday night, officers at some companies, together with the F.B.I., the State Division and the workplace coordinating America’s intelligence companies, advised their workers to not reply.
These directions in impact countermanded the order in some sectors of the federal government, difficult the broad authority President Trump has given to Mr. Musk, the world’s richest man, to scrutinize the federal forms.
“The State Division will reply on behalf of the State Division,” wrote Tibor Nagy, a Trump appointee who’s the division’s performing underneath secretary for administration. “No worker is obligated to report their actions outdoors of their division chain of command.”
Tulsi Gabbard, the director of the workplace of nationwide intelligence, ordered all intelligence group officers to not reply, in a message reviewed by The New York Occasions.
“Given the inherently delicate and categorized nature of our work, I.C. workers mustn’t reply to the OPM e mail,” Ms. Gabbard wrote.
Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, wrote that “the F.B.I., by way of the workplace of the director, is in command of all our evaluate processes,” telling workers that they need to “for now, please pause any responses.”
On the Justice Division and F.B.I., the threatening indicators from Mr. Musk had been met with a mixture of anger and amazement that anybody would situation such a blanket demand with out consideration for delicate areas resembling legal investigations, authorized confidentiality or grand jury materials.
Some legislation enforcement supervisors rapidly advised workers to attend for extra steerage from managers on Monday earlier than responding to the demand, in accordance with present and former officers.
Workers on the Protection Division had been additionally advised to not adjust to the e-mail.
“The Division of Protection is accountable for reviewing the efficiency of its personnel and it’ll conduct any evaluate in accordance with its personal procedures,” Darin S. Selnick, the performing Pentagon official in command of personnel, stated in a press release.
On Saturday, Mr. Musk posted a requirement for presidency workers to summarize their accomplishments for the week, warning that failure to take action could be taken as a resignation. Quickly after, the Workplace of Personnel Administration, which manages the federal work drive, despatched an e mail asking civil servants for an inventory of accomplishments, nevertheless it didn’t embrace the specter of removing for not complying.
Unions representing federal employees urged that Mr. Musk’s order was not legitimate. They suggested their members to observe steerage from their supervisors on how, and whether or not, to answer the e-mail.
“We are going to formally request that O.P.M. rescind the e-mail and make clear underneath what authority it was issued,” one union, the American Federation of Authorities Workers, advised its members late on Saturday. Everett Kelley, the union’s president, stated in a press release that the order demonstrated Mr. Musk and the Trump administration’s “utter disdain for federal workers.”
A number of intelligence companies, together with the Nationwide Safety Company, had warned workers that responding might threat inadvertently disclosing categorized work.
Though Mr. Musk’s authentic e mail advised workers to not embrace categorized materials, present and former intelligence officers stated that if an adversary gained entry to hundreds of unclassified accounts of intelligence officers’ work that it could be capable to piece collectively delicate particulars or study initiatives that had been supposed to stay secret.
Consultant Mike Lawler, a New York Republican whose seat could also be among the many most fiercely contested in 2026, raised doubt in regards to the order whilst he gave broader help to Mr. Musk’s cost-cutting effort.
“I don’t understand how that’s essentially possible,” Mr. Lawler stated of the ultimatum. “Clearly, numerous federal workers are underneath union contract.”
However, he continued, “There’s no query, because the Division of Authorities Effectivity strikes forward, what they’re in search of to do is make sure that each company and division is successfully and effectively doing their job.”
It’s unclear what authorized foundation Mr. Musk must justify mass firings primarily based on responses to the e-mail, and the White Home and the Workplace of Personnel Administration didn’t instantly reply questions on the specter of removing.
However Mr. Musk — who made related unconventional calls for throughout his takeover of Twitter, now referred to as X — insisted on Sunday morning that the order amounted to “a really primary pulse verify.”
In a sequence of posts, Mr. Musk additionally promoted baseless claims of wage fraud — {that a} important variety of “non-existent” or useless folks had been employed within the federal work drive, and that criminals had been utilizing the pretend workers to gather authorities paychecks.
“They’re overlaying immense fraud,” Mr. Musk stated in response to a submit by a supporter that stated that “the left is flipping out a few easy e mail.” In one other submit, Mr. Musk posted a meme that imagined some federal workers to be terrorized by the order.
His claims echo an identical one that tens of thousands and thousands of useless folks could also be receiving fraudulent Social Safety funds. A current report by the Social Safety Administration’s inspector common — a watchdog that investigates this system for waste, fraud and abuse — discovered that “nearly none” of the folks within the company’s database who had possible died had been receiving funds.
Reporting was contributed by Julian E. Barnes, Devlin Barrett, Ken Bensinger, Kate Conger, Minho Kim, Lisa Friedman and Margot Sanger-Katz.
