WASHINGTON: Elon Musk, the billionaire advisor to Donald Trump, said on Saturday (Feb 22) that all US federal employees must justify their work or lose their jobs, hours after the president pushed him to be “more aggressive” in slashing government spending.
Musk – the world’s richest person and Trump’s biggest donor – has led the effort to fire swathes of the government workforce.
“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,” Musk wrote.
According to a copy of the email provided to AFP, federal workers were asked to submit “approx 5 bullets of what you accomplished last week”.
The email, with the subject line “What did you do last week?”, came from the US Office of Personnel Management (OPM). The deadline to reply was 11.59 pm on Monday, though the message did not say failure to do so would lead to termination.
The OPM did not immediately reply to AFP’s request for comment on Saturday evening.
The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the largest federal employee union, vowed to challenge any unlawful terminations in a statement from national president Everett Kelley.
Kelley slammed Musk and the Trump administration, saying the move showed “their utter disdain for federal employees and the critical services they provide to the American people”.
“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,” he said.
Several federal employees told AFP they were advised by their agencies not to respond to the email and wait for further instruction, a recommendation echoed by the National Treasury Employees Union.
