The latest unusual directive from Musk’s team has injected a fresh sense of chaos across beleaguered agencies, including the National Weather Service, the state department and the federal court system, as senior officials worked to verify the message’s authenticity on Saturday night and in some cases, instructed their employees not to respond.
Thousands of government employees have already been forced out of the federal workforce – either by being fired or offered a buyout – during the first month of Trump’s administration as the White House and Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency fire both new and career workers, tell agency leaders to plan for “large-scale reductions in force” and freeze trillions of dollars in federal grant funds.
Shortly afterwards, 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.
Hundreds of thousands of federal workers have been given little more than 48 hours to explain what they accomplished over the past week, sparking confusion across key agencies as the tech billionaire Elon Musk expands his crusade to slash the size of government.
Everett Kelley, the president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), called the order an example of Trump and Musk’s “utter disdain for federal employees and the critical services they provide to the American people”.
