Special Poll
Elon Musk announced on Saturday that all federal employees will soon be required to submit a weekly email detailing their accomplishments—and failure to comply will be considered a voluntary resignation.
Musk’s move echoes the management style he used at Twitter, where employees were required to justify their roles or risk being let go. However, in this case, the affected workers are Civil Service employees, many of whom have union protections. The decision is also drawing criticism from Congress, where some lawmakers are becoming increasingly uneasy about the administration’s aggressive approach to workforce reductions.
Musk shared the directive in a post on X Saturday afternoon, stating:
“Consistent with President (Trump’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.”
The post follows an earlier message from Trump on Truth Social, in which he urged Musk to take an even more aggressive stance in implementing the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) initiative, which has already resulted in tens of thousands of terminations of probationary employees.
The announcement sparked immediate backlash from labor unions. Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), which represents the largest number of federal workers, strongly condemned the demand.
“It is cruel and disrespectful to hundreds of thousands of veterans who are wearing their second uniform in the civil service to be forced to justify their job duties to this out-of-touch, privileged, unelected billionaire who has never performed one single hour of honest public service in his life,” Kelley stated.
He also vowed that AFGE will challenge any unlawful terminations affecting its members or federal employees nationwide.
So far, the White House has not issued a response to Musk’s directive.