WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump voiced support for Elon Musk's demand that federal employees explain their recent accomplishments by the end of Monday or risk getting fired, an edict that has spawned new litigation and added to turmoil within the government workforce.
“What he’s doing is saying, ‘Are you actually working?’” Trump said in the Oval Office during a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron. "And then, if you don’t answer, like, you're sort of semi-fired or you're fired, because a lot of people aren’t answering because they don’t even exist.”
The Republican president said that Musk's Department of Government Efficiency has found “hundreds of billions of dollars in fraud" as he suggested that federal paychecks are going to nonexistent employees. He did not present evidence for his claims.
“If people don’t respond, it’s very possible that there is no such person, or they aren’t working," Trump said.
Attorneys representing unions, businesses, veterans and conservation organizations filed an updated lawsuit in federal court in California on Monday, arguing Musk had violated the law with his demand. The Office of Personnel Management, which functions as a human resources agency for the federal government, told employees to detail five things they did last week by the end of Monday.
The lawsuit, spearheaded by the State Democracy Defenders Fund, called the threat of mass firings “one of the most massive employment frauds in the history of this country.”
The White House criticized the litigation.
“In the time it took these employees on taxpayer-funded salaries to file a frivolous lawsuit, they could have briefly recapped their accomplishments to their managers, as is common in the private sector, 100 times over," said Anna Kelly, a deputy press secretary, in a statement.
Musk is leading Trump's efforts to overhaul and downsize the federal government, and they've already caused upheaval by pushing employees to resign, laying off probationary workers and halting work at some agencies.
However, there are signs Musk is testing the limits of his influence, and some administration officials told employees not to respond to his demand. It has been the most significant public divergence between the billionaire entrepreneur and Senate-approved Cabinet leaders, who have otherwise been enthusiastic about fulfilling Musk's objectives.
Trump dismissed the idea there was any kind of split involving his most powerful adviser.
“They don’t mean that in any way combatively with Elon,” he said, adding that "everyone thought it was a pretty ingenious idea.”
The Office of Personnel Management declined to comment on Monday as Musk continued to threaten federal workers with layoffs despite the confusion.
“Those who do not take this email seriously will soon be furthering their career elsewhere,” he posted on X, his social media platform.
The latest turbulence began over the weekend, when Trump posted on his social media website: “ELON IS DOING A GREAT JOB, BUT I WOULD LIKE TO SEE HIM GET MORE AGGRESSIVE."
Musk followed by saying “all federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week.” He claimed "failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.” The directive echoed how the entrepreneur has managed his own companies.
The Office of Personnel Management sent out its own request afterward.
“Please reply to this email with approx. 5 bullets of what you accomplished last week and cc your manager," the message said. However, it said nothing about the potential for employees being fired for noncompliance. The deadline was listed as 11:59 p.m. EST Monday.
There was swift resistance from several key U.S. agencies led by the president’s loyalists — including the FBI, the State Department, Homeland Security and the Pentagon — which instructed their employees over the weekend not to respond. Lawmakers in both major political parties said Musk’s mandate may be illegal.
Justice Department employees were told in an email Monday morning that they don’t need to respond to the request “due to the confidential and sensitive nature of the Department’s work.”
But employees in the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington were instructed to respond “in general terms,” leaving out case-specific or otherwise sensitive information. In an email viewed by The Associated Press, attorneys were provided with guidance about how to respond about the number of court hearings they attended, defendants they charged, cases they resolved or other tasks.
One message Sunday morning from the Department of Health and Human Services, led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., instructed its 80,000 employees to comply. That was shortly after the acting general counsel, Sean Keveney, had instructed some not to. And by Sunday evening, agency leadership issued new instructions that employees should “pause activities” related to the request until noon Monday.
“Having put in over 70 hours of work last week advancing Administration’s priorities, I was personally insulted to receive the below email,” Keveney said in an email that acknowledged a broad sense of “uncertainty and stress” within the agency.
Keveney laid out security concerns and pointed out some of the work done by the agency’s employees may be protected by attorney-client privilege.
Education Department workers were directed to comply on Monday morning. “The email is legitimate and employees should respond,” wrote Rachel Oglesby, chief of staff at the department.
FBI Director Kash Patel, an outspoken Trump ally who was recently confirmed by the Senate, instructed employees to ignore Musk’s request, at least for now.
“The FBI, through the Office of the Director, is in charge of all of our review processes, and will conduct reviews in accordance with FBI procedures,” Patel wrote in an email. “When and if further information is required, we will coordinate the responses. For now, please pause any responses.”
Thousands of government employees have been forced out of the federal workforce — either by being fired or through a “deferred resignation″ offer — during the first month of Trump’s second term. There's no official figure available for the total firings or layoffs, but the AP has tallied hundreds of thousands of workers who are being affected. Many work outside of Washington.
Musk on Sunday called his latest request “a very basic pulse check.”
“The reason this matters is that a significant number of people who are supposed to be working for the government are doing so little work that they are not checking their email at all!” Musk wrote on X. “In some cases, we believe non-existent people or the identities of dead people are being used to collect paychecks.”
He has provided no evidence of such fraud. Separately, Musk and Trump have falsely claimed in recent days that tens of millions of dead people over 100 years old are receiving Social Security payments.
Meanwhile, thousands of other employees are preparing to leave the federal workforce this coming week, including probationary civilian workers at the Pentagon and all but a fraction of U.S. Agency for International Development staffers through cuts or leave.
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Associated Press writers Steve Peoples in New York, Eric Tucker, Amanda Seitz, Byron Tau, Ellen Knickmeyer, Matthew Perrone, Alanna Durkin Richer and Tara Copp in Washington and Valerie Gonzalez in McAllen, Texas, contributed to this report.
Chris Megerian And Lindsay Whitehurst, The Associated Press
