U.S. federal workers received an email over the weekend asking them to submit five bullet points by Monday to summarize the work they completed over the past week.
Around two million federal workers received the email on Saturday, giving them a chance to justify their productivity. Musk said a failure to respond would be considered a resignation.
Consistent with President @realDonaldTrump’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.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 22, 2025
The weekend announcement caught the ire of some people, like Senator Tina Smith (D-MN).
“@ElonMusk I hate to break it to you but you aren’t my boss. I answer to the people of Minnesota,” the Democratic senator posted on X in an apparent dismissal of the directive.
However, a poll conducted by Musk found that more than seven out of 10 people answered ‘Yes’ to the question, “Should all federal employees be required to send a short email with some basic bullet points about what they accomplished last week?”
As of Monday morning, the poll had received more than 1.2 million votes, signaling strong support for the action.
Should all federal employees be required to send a short email with some basic bullet points about what they accomplished last week?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 23, 2025
Speaking to Fox News, Representative Ralph Norman (R-SC) pointed out that the average federal employee salary is $106,000 per year, insisting that a weekly recap would be standard procedure for similar positions in the private sector.
“In the private sector, you do that every day, or you don’t exist, you don’t keep your business going,” Norman said.
Some federal agencies, however, like the Department of Defense, ordered their civilian staff to ignore the request to report on productivity.
“When and if required, the Department will coordinate responses to the email you have received from OPM [Office of Personnel Management]. For now, please pause any response to the OPM email titled, ‘What did you do last week,’” wrote Darin S. Selnick, acting undersecretary of defense of personnel and readiness.
“Anyone with the attitude of that Pentagon official needs to look for a new job,” Musk posted on X in response to a counter directive to ignore the call for accountability.