‘If you don’t answer … you’re fired’: Trump stands behind Musk’s DOGE productivity email

President Donald Trump warned that federal employees who don’t follow new guidance requiring them to report personal productivity could lose their jobs. 

The effort stems from an email that SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk spearheaded that asked federal workers to send an email Monday detailing a summary of what tasks they accomplished the previous week. Musk is heading up the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) that aims to reduce government waste and fraud. 

‘I thought it was great,’ Trump told reporters of the initiative Monday at the White House, ‘because we have people who 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 [Musk is] doing is saying, ‘Are you actually working?’ If you don’t answer, you’re sort of semi-fired, or you’re fired, because a lot of people are not answering because they don’t even exist.’

Musk unveiled the email in a post on X on Saturday and cautioned that a failure to reply was equivalent to handing in a resignation.

‘Consistent with President @realDonaldTrump’s instructions, all federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week,’ Musk wrote on X. ‘Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.’

Federal employees received an email from the Office of Personnel and Management on Saturday that instructed them to provide a list of five things they accomplished the previous week by a deadline of 11:59 p.m. Monday. 

The American Federation of Government Employees, a labor union for federal workers, criticized the policy and said Trump and his administration have once again demonstrated ‘utter disdain’ for federal employees. 

‘It is cruel and disrespectful for federal employees 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,’ American Federation of Government Employees National President Everett Kelley said in a Saturday statement.

The federation ‘will challenge any unlawful terminations of our members and federal employees across the country,’ Kelley said.

Meanwhile, multiple agencies have issued instructions telling their employees to disregard Musk’s guidance.

For example, the Department of Defense issued a letter to its civilian personnel asserting the Pentagon’s autonomy on Sunday and directing employees to ignore Musk’s request to send details of their work week to the Office of Personnel Management.

‘DoD personnel may have received an email from OPM requesting information,’ wrote Darin Selnick, who is performing the duties of the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness. ‘The Department of Defense is responsible for reviewing the performance of its personnel and it will conduct any review in accordance with its own procedures.

‘When and if required, the Department will coordinate responses to the email you have received from OPM,’ he wrote. ‘For now, please pause any response to the OPM email titled, ‘What did you do last week.”

FBI Director Kash Patel issued a similar directive to his staff and said the agency ‘will conduct reviews in accordance with FBI procedures,’ according to the Associated Press.

DOGE, which is tasked with weeding out government overspending, is facing multiple lawsuits from government employees seeking to challenge Musk’s efforts to audit various federal agencies.

Fox News’ Greg Wehner, Jennifer Griffin and Stephen Sorace contributed to this report.