Mass Email Sent to Federal Employees: 5 Things We Know

Elon Musk in the White House's Oval Office in Washington on Feb. 11, 2025. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

An email has been sent out to federal employees asking what they did in the past week as tech billionaire Elon Musk, who is involved in the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), suggested that those who don’t respond could face consequences.

Musk, an adviser to President Donald Trump, wrote on social media that if federal workers do not reply to the email, it will be seen as a resignation.

“All federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week,” Musk wrote on X Saturday. “Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.”

OPM Confirms Email

Federal employees—including some judges, court staff, and federal prison officials—received a three-line email with this instruction: “Please reply to this email with approx. 5 bullets of what you accomplished last week and cc your manager.”

McLaurine Pinover, a spokesperson at the Office of Personnel Management, confirmed the directive and said that individual agencies would “determine any next steps.”

Pinover added that individual agencies would also look into how to proceed if a worker is on leave or vacation when they received the email. The Epoch Times contacted the office for additional comment Sunday.

Musk Says Some Workers Deserve Promotion

And on Sunday morning, Musk provided an explanation as to why the email was sent out and said it’s designed to root out possible fraud.

“The reason this matters is that a significant number of people who are supposed to be working for the government are doing so little work that they are not checking their email at all!” he wrote on X. “In some cases, we believe non-existent people or the identities of dead people are being used to collect paychecks. In other words, there is outright fraud.”

Musk also said that there have been “a large number of good responses” to the email“ and those ”are the people who should be considered for promotion.”

Throughout the day on Sunday, the owner of X made frequent reference to the emails that were sent out. At one point, Musk also posted a poll asking whether it is appropriate to have an employee respond with a short email about their productivity over the past week.

Trump Wants ‘More Aggressive’ Strategy

Trump said over the weekend that he wants to see Musk and DOGE “get more aggressive.”

“Elon is doing a great job, but I would like to see him get more aggressive,” Trump wrote Saturday in a post in all caps on Truth Social. “Remember, we have a country to save, but ultimately, to make it greater than ever before. MAGA!”

His message came hours before emails were sent out to U.S. federal government employees telling them to detail their work accomplishments from the previous week by Monday night or risk losing their jobs.

It’s unclear whether the emails were sent in response to Trump’s post on social media.

Democrats, Unions Critical

Democrats were critical of the email sent to federal employees, while the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) signaled in a statement that it would challenge terminations under the decision.

Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) wrote on X that the email sent out is “illegal, reckless, and yet another example of the cruel and arbitrary chaos he is inflicting on the people’s government.”

“This is a clear attempt to force the departure of civil servants who resoundingly refused to take the bait on the scam ‘deferred resignation’ offer,” he wrote.

Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) wrote in a post on X: “I bet a lot of people have had an experience like this with a bad boss–there’s an email in your inbox on Saturday night saying, ‘Prove to me your worthiness by Monday or else.’”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) released a statement on Sunday: “Elon Musk is traumatizing hardworking federal employees, their children and families. He has no legal authority to make his latest demands. We will block him in Congress and in the Courts. Again.”

On Sunday, the AFGE and its president signaled in a statement the union would challenge what they termed as “unlawful terminations” as a result of the email process.

Numerous Federal Workers Laid Off

As part of DOGE’s efforts to downsize federal spending and workforce, the Trump administration has fired thousands of federal workers.

It offered government employees a “deferred resignation” program and also attempted to end programs within agencies, though sometimes judges have intervened. The tech mogul and world’s richest man has pledged to save trillions of taxpayer dollars by cutting costs.

There is no official figure available for the total firings or layoffs.

Other ways that the Trump administration has sought to reduce the federal workforce include laying off employees under a probationary status, meaning those who are typically on the job for a year or less.

Agencies where workers have been laid off include the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Institutes of Health, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Department of Energy, and the Department of Agriculture. Staff at the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency have also been laid off in recent days, among others.

Last week, the Department of Veterans Affairs confirmed that about 1,000 employees were dismissed “effective immediately,” including some probationary workers.

The move is not without precedent. In the 1990s, President Bill Clinton’s administration implemented a plan with Congress to authorize $25,000 buyouts for federal workers and ended up eliminating hundreds of thousands of federal positions during his term.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.