Federal employees were left in turmoil on Monday trying to figure out how to respond to Elon Musk’s email demanding they justify their work accomplishments by the end of the day or risk being fired — after receiving flip-flopping guidance.
The DOGE chief doubled down on his President Trump-approved request Monday night after multiple federal agencies told employees to ignore his demand.
Meanwhile, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) said responses were “voluntary.”
Musk had initially given federal employees a deadline of 11:59 p.m. Monday to respond.
“Our chief said it was mandatory. Then OPM said it became voluntary. Then I guess Trump just told us it was mandatory again,” a longtime employee of the Department of Veterans Affairs told CNN. “No one knows who is in charge and who to listen to.”
“It’s bedlam,” an IRS employee added.
While employees want to show off their good work, they are concerned about “not knowing where the information is going,” a State Department worker told the outlet.
DOGE, created under Trump’s administration, has fired over 20,000 federal government workers and frozen billions in federal grants and foreign aid.
In response to the email demanding workers list their professional accomplishments over the past week, multiple US agencies — including the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, and State — instructed staffers to ignore the request.
Meanwhile, the Commerce and Transportation departments told staff to comply and list five accomplishments from the last week.
Ironically, several government employees told CNN that trying to decode the confusing directive kept them from performing their job responsibilities on Monday.
A National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration employee told the outlet they “haven’t done any of my actual duties to the email and having to respond to those below me and trying to get clarification from those above.”
Meanwhile, a second Department of Veterans Affairs staffer said they had to attend multiple meetings on Monday about the email instead of doing their other work.
“That’s all time taken away from patient care,” said the employee, whose leadership recommended staffers reply to the email. “It’s totally disruptive.”
Some federal workers were told to reply — but to avoid being descriptive so as to not accidentally leak any classified information.
“Assume that what you write will be read by malign foreign actors and tailor your response accordingly,” an email sent to the Department of Health and Human Services workers read.
Workers at the Environmental Protection Agency were also told to heed Musk’s demand while not sharing any sensitive information.
“Nobody has a spine,” said one EPA worker. “Because EPA is a target, they’re trying to play nice with them, thinking that might make them not subject to deeper cuts. When you appease a bully, you give them license to come after you more.”
IRS workers fed up with the chaos caused during the busy tax season penned a fake response to Musk to vent their frustrations.
The workers told Musk they “kept the employees from beating up their managers” and “kept your equipment in a working condition without it being thrown against the damn wall.”
The spoof response noted that IRS workers were also “trying to minimize the fear, confusion and anger” caused for “no reason” during tax season.
Meanwhile, Trump on Monday backed Musk’s demand — before suggesting workers who didn’t reply might not be working at all.
The billionaire Tesla and SpaceX founder warned later Monday that employees may have a second chance — but failure to respond would result in “termination.”
“The email request was utterly trivial, as the standard for passing the test was to type some words and press send!” Musk wrote on X. “Yet so many failed even that inane test, urged on in some cases by their managers.”
“Subject to the discretion of the President, they will be given another chance,” he wrote in a separate post. “Failure to respond a second time will result in termination.”
