The American entrepreneur and head of the US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) said that, depending on President Donald Trump’s decision, those federal employees who ignored Musk’s email asking them to report on their work for the week could get a second chance.
Musk had earlier sent an email to all US federal employees asking them to report on what they had done in the past week. The DOGE chief wrote on social media X that failure to do so would be seen as submitting a letter of resignation.
‘At the discretion of the president, they will be given another chance. Failure to respond a second time will result in termination,’ Musk wrote on social network X, commenting on one user’s call to fire anyone who ignored the letter or complained about it.
In another post, Musk took umbrage at the fact that many employees did not bother to respond to his letter. The DOGE chief said the demands in the letter were ‘the simplest’ but many failed to even address them.
‘Have you ever seen such incompetence and contempt for how your tax dollars are spent?’ – he wrote.
Bloomberg reported on Monday that several US government agencies had advised their employees to temporarily ignore Musk’s demand that they report on their work for the week or quit. Those agencies included the Pentagon and the U.S. Department of Justice, the agency said.
Earlier, Musk said that the Trump administration was making cuts among government employees in pursuit of people moving to the private sector of the economy. The New York Times also reported that the US Office of Personnel Management (OPM) had instructed federal agencies to lay off most of the country’s probationary employees.