A number of Trump administration officers main federal businesses urged their staff 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 businesses, together with the F.B.I., the State Division and the workplace coordinating America’s intelligence businesses, informed their staff 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 beneath 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 neighborhood officers to not reply, in a message reviewed by The New York Instances.
“Given the inherently delicate and categorized nature of our work, I.C. staff shouldn’t reply to the OPM e-mail,” Ms. Gabbard wrote.
Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, wrote that “the F.B.I., by the workplace of the director, is answerable for all our evaluation processes,” telling staff that they need to “for now, please pause any responses.”
On the Justice Division and F.B.I., the threatening alerts from Mr. Musk have been met with a mixture of anger and amazement that anybody would challenge such a blanket demand with out consideration for delicate areas akin to legal investigations, authorized confidentiality or grand jury materials.
Some regulation enforcement supervisors rapidly informed staff to attend for extra steerage from managers on Monday earlier than responding to the demand, in keeping with present and former officers.
Staff on the Protection Division have been additionally informed 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 evaluation in accordance with its personal procedures,” Darin S. Selnick, the performing Pentagon official answerable for personnel, stated in a press release.
On Saturday, Mr. Musk posted a requirement for presidency staff 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 pressure, despatched an e-mail asking civil servants for an inventory of accomplishments, nevertheless it didn’t embrace the specter of elimination for not complying.
Unions representing federal staff steered that Mr. Musk’s order was not legitimate. They suggested their members to comply with steerage from their supervisors on how, and whether or not, to answer the e-mail.
“We’ll formally request that O.P.M. rescind the e-mail and make clear beneath what authority it was issued,” one union, the American Federation of Authorities Staff, informed 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 staff.”
A number of intelligence businesses, together with the Nationwide Safety Company, had warned staff that responding may danger inadvertently disclosing categorized work.
Though Mr. Musk’s unique e-mail informed staff 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 find out about tasks that have 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 know the way that’s essentially possible,” Mr. Lawler stated of the ultimatum. “Clearly, numerous federal staff are beneath union contract.”
However, he continued, “There’s no query, because the Division of Authorities Effectivity strikes forward, what they’re looking for to do is be certain that each company and division is successfully and effectively doing their job.”
It’s unclear what authorized foundation Mr. Musk must justify mass firings based mostly 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 elimination.
However Mr. Musk — who made related unconventional calls for throughout his takeover of Twitter, now generally known 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 lifeless folks have been employed within the federal work pressure, and that criminals have been utilizing the faux staff to gather authorities paychecks.
“They’re masking immense fraud,” Mr. Musk stated in response to a publish by a supporter that stated that “the left is flipping out a few easy e-mail.” In one other publish, Mr. Musk posted a meme that imagined some federal staff to be terrorized by the order.
His claims echo the same one which tens of thousands and thousands of lifeless folks could also be receiving fraudulent Social Safety funds. A current report by the Social Safety Administration’s inspector normal — a watchdog that investigates this system for waste, fraud and abuse — discovered that “virtually none” of the folks within the company’s database who had doubtless died have been receiving funds.
Reporting was contributed by Julian E. Barnes, Devlin Barrett, Ken Bensinger, Kate Conger, Minho Kim, Lisa Friedman and Margot Sanger-Katz.
