Trump Backs Mass ‘Accomplishment’ Email, Says It’s Designed to Figure Out Who’s Working

President Donald Trump in Washington on Feb. 24, 2025. Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

President Donald Trump on Feb. 24 backed the email sent to millions of government workers that asked them what they’ve accomplished lately.

“I thought it was great because we have people that don’t show up to work and nobody even knows that they work for the government,” Trump told reporters in Washington. “So by asking the question, ‘Tell us what you did this week,’ what he’s doing is saying, ‘Are you actually working?’”

Tech billionaire Elon Musk, a special government employee, announced the missive on Friday. Shortly after that, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) sent the email to government workers.

Titled “What did you do last week?” the email asked employees to list five bullet points of what they accomplished in recent days. It said the deadline to respond was Feb. 24 at 11:59 p.m. ET.

“Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation,” Musk wrote on X, his social media platform.

“If you don’t answer, you’re sort of semi-fired, or you’re fired,” Trump said on Monday. “Because a lot of people are not answering because they don’t even exist. That’s how badly various parts of our government were run.”

He added later that it was a “genius move” and that “if people don’t respond, it’s very possible there is no such person, or they’re not working.”

Musk, who has been leading Trump’s efforts to make the government more efficient, shared a video of some of Trump’s comments on X.

Federal employees sued over the email, alleging in federal court that it was done without required steps. Neither the White House nor Trump have appeared to comment on the suit, which was filed by the American Federation of Government Employees and other groups that represent federal workers.

Some agencies have directed employees to comply with the email, including the Drug Enforcement Agency.

Others have advised their employees not to respond.

“When and if required, the Department will coordinate responses to the email you received from OPM. For now, please pause any response to the OPM email,” Darin S. Selnick, a top Pentagon official, told Department of Defense employees.

Trump said that the directives were issued “in a friendly manner.”

“They don’t mean that in any way combatively with Elon, they’re just saying with some people, you don’t really want to have them tell you what they’re working on,” Trump said, noting that that includes FBI personnel who may be working on confidential matters.