By Brian Schwartz

WASHINGTON -- Elon Musk said Saturday that federal employees must detail their accomplishments at work or risk losing their jobs, the latest move by the Trump administration to overhaul the government workforce.

"Consistent with President [Trump's] instructions, 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 posted on X.

The post didn't say how long employees would have to respond to the email.

An administration official told The Wall Street Journal that such an email to federal employees is forthcoming, and it would be sent from the Office of Personnel and Management.

A spokeswoman for OPM confirmed the email is in process of going out to all federal workers. It will go to all agencies including the Central Intelligence Agency, the OPM spokeswoman said.

OPM, the government's human-resources arm, previously sent federal employees a notice titled "Fork in the Road." That email offered workers pay and benefits in exchange for their resignations. The deadline to take the offer was Feb. 6, and about 65,000 employees had taken the offer, The Wall Street Journal previously reported.

The move by Musk, whom Trump has tasked with overseeing the Department of Government Efficiency, comes after the president earlier Saturday posted on social media that he wants the Tesla CEO to "get more aggressive" with his role. Trump also has previously said he is authorizing everything Musk is doing as one of his advisers.

Musk has been guiding DOGE as it implements significant spending cuts across the federal government. Thousands of federal employees have lost their jobs including officials at the Internal Revenue Service, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Education Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development.

A Trump executive order instructs agencies to work with DOGE officials on rescinding or modifying a wave of regulations.

Musk's post demanding workers respond to an email with details about their work, or risk their job security, mirrors how he ran Twitter after he purchased the social-media company in 2022, before later renaming it X. After a then-Twitter employee in 2023 said on the platform that he didn't know whether he was still employed at the company, Musk wrote in response "What work have you been doing?"

The White House said Monday in a court filing that the billionaire businessman has no decision-making authority and isn't the formal administrator of DOGE.

Joshua Fisher, director of the Office of Administration that supports the executive branch, said in a recent court declaration that Musk has no "actual or formal authority to make government decisions himself. Mr. Musk can only advise the President and communicate the President's directives."

Write to Brian Schwartz at brian.schwartz@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 22, 2025 17:24 ET (22:24 GMT)

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