President Trump on Monday defended tech billionaire Elon Musk after pushback over his email demanding federal workers list five accomplishments from the past week and in doing so, raising the of risk losing their jobs.
“There was a lot of genius in sending it. We’re trying to find out if people are working and so we’re sending a letter to people, please tell us what you did last week. If people don’t respond, it’s very possible that there is no such person or they’re not working,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
The email instructed federal workers to respond to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) by 11:59 p.m. EST Monday with five bullet points of accomplishments.
When asked if the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) could benefit from streamlined communication, Trump blamed the Biden administration and then suggested that some people listed as federal government workers don’t exist, without providing any proof of that actually being the case.
“I thought it was great because we have people that don’t show up to work and nobody even knows if they work for the government. So, by asking the question, tell us what you did this week, what he’s doing is saying, are you actually working? And then if you don’t answer, like, you’re sort of semi fired or you’re fired,” the president said.
He added, “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, especially by this last group. So, what they’re doing is they’re trying to find out who’s working for the government, are we paying other people who aren’t working?”
A growing list of agencies, including the Pentagon, FBI, State Department and intelligence community, have told their employees to hold off and not respond to the email, with some citing national security concerns.
Trump said he’s not concerned about the disconnect between Musk and the agency heads, saying they’re request was not doing in a combative manner.
“That was done in a friendly matter, only thing perhaps Marco [rubio] at State Department where they have very confidential things or the FBI where they’re working on confidential things. And, they don’t mean that any way combatively way with Elon,” Trump said. “But, other than that, I think everyone thought it was a pretty ingenious idea. We have to find out where these people are, who are they?”
Other agency heads, including Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, has advised employees to answer the OPM email.
The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) questioned the legal authority of the directive in a letter to acting OPM Director Charles Ezell on Sunday. It then expanded a lawsuit with other unions suing the Trump administration over its push to fire probationary employees across the government to challenge Musk’s threat to fire workers who fail to respond to the OPM email.
