Senate Republicans on Monday criticized Elon Musk’s directive for federal government employees to lose their jobs if they did not send in a bullet-pointed summary of what they did last week at work, describing it as a rash decision that was not handled well.
The email asking what they accomplished over the past week had set a deadline of Monday at midnight for responses. However, that was walked back by the Office of Personnel Management when it told departments and agencies that they could ignore that email.
Nevertheless, some Senate GOP members took issue with Musk’s request as he continues his push to cut the ranks of federal workers.
“I don’t think it was handled very well in terms of the surprise element of it or what the point of it was,” said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.). “That, I think, was confusing because I think there were a couple different explanations.”
“I think a little clarification on the voluntary part is probably good,” she added, pointing to OPM telling agencies that responses were optional.
The email came after Musk warned government workers via X on Saturday afternoon that they would be asked to explain “what they got done last week” and that no response would be “taken as a resignation” — setting off confusion throughout departments and on Capitol Hill.
Multiple Republicans in the upper chamber took specific issue with him effectively overstepping the leadership of Senate-confirmed heads of various departments and agencies.
“I think it’s a distraction,” said Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.). “You’re undermining newly-confirmed leadership by making a request of an agency for which you have no line management responsibility. It’s fine in transition, but you’ve got to start honoring the chain of command or it’s disruptive to the person. People are going to wonder, who’s their boss?”
Tillis pointed specifically to FBI Director Kash Patel telling bureau employees to pause responses prior to the OPM directive as a prime example.
“I don’t think Kash Patel disagrees with trying to drive efficiency. He wants to get people out of HQ and into the field,” Tillis continued. “If you’re in an open seat and you’ve got an acting member that says, ‘Yeah, go knock yourself out’ — that’s fine. But once you get confirmed people, you should be using the chain of command because it’s the only way you’re going to sustain things and it’s the only way you’re going to make it very clear who those people’s bosses are.”
Sen. Susan Collins added that she was glad to see some agency heads, such as Patel, offer some resistance to the email.
“It should not be Elon Musk’s call,” she told reporters. “I was glad to see the pushback.”
A number of members tried to walk a fine line on Musk’s email.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) labeled the ask “novel,” but conceded that when push comes to shove, it’s going to be department and agency heads who will be informing and making these decisions looking ahead.
“The goal is to make government more efficient. This is a way of getting at it — [a] different way of getting at it for sure,” Thune said. “But nevertheless, hopefully in the end, somewhat successful. But there are other ways managers could probably come up with solutions to that issue as well.”
Thune added that he was not familiar enough with the thought process to say whether it was rushed.
Democrats were especially critical of the move, including those who represent scores of federal workers. Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) argued that Musk’s decision was “callous,” “careless” and “irresponsible.”
“I don’t know if it’s on-purpose confusion,” he said “[Office of Management and Budget Director Russel Vought] wanted to traumatize the workforce. I think he’s doing a pretty good job on that.”
“It’s going to chase away our best federal workers, and that’s going to end up costing money,” added Warner, who represents a sizeable number of such workers in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C.
Some of President Trump’s most ardent supporters continued to give Musk and the president’s team support, saying that they were elected to shake up the nation’s capital.
“This is a culture shock to permanent Washington, which are like, ‘You never, ever touch this stuff,’” said Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) “There are great people who do important things, but we’ve got a lot of bloat in the federal government.”
