Trump administration tells agencies they can ignore Musk order on email reply

The Trump administration has told federal agency leaders that they can ignore the public decree from Elon Musk to effectively fire employees who do not send in bullet-point summaries of their work last week, according to three people familiar with the matter, a break with the billionaire who has exerted significant power to slash the 2.3-million-person federal workforce.

The Office of Personnel Management, a federal agency that functions as the government’s HR department, delivered the news to agency chief human capital officers on a call midday Monday, according to one of the people, an agency official on the call, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal conversations.

Another person briefed on the call said that OPM is also looking at weekly reporting for government departments. But the person said that OPM was unsure what to do with the emails of employees who responded so far and had “no plans” to analyze them.

Later in the day, though, Trump suggested non-responders could still be terminated, while Musk wrote on X they would be given “another chance” to write back before being fired.

Musk on Saturday posted on his social media platform, X, that federal employees would receive an email asking for a list of what they did at work last week and would be considered as having resigned if they did not reply by Monday at 11:59 p.m. Eastern. Shortly thereafter, an email blast from OPM relaying the request, without the termination threat, went out to millions of people, including federal judges and workers in the legislative branch—prompting confusion as agency heads struggled to apply the guidance to their particular work. Even before the latest directive, some agencies told workers not to comply, fearful that they might, at OPM’s behest, be disclosing information that was sensitive or important to national security.

The patchwork of conflicting, evolving guidance and ensuing confusion has become a mainstay of the Musk-led U.S. DOGE Service’s campaign to shrink the federal government—an effort that has inspired considerable backlash from the courts, lawmakers and people inside the bureaucracy. Also Monday, a federal watchdog agency said the Trump administration’s firings of a handful of probationary federal workers were illegal and requested a 45-day stay of their terminations. Meanwhile, in the halls of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, TV monitors showed a looping video of an apparently falsified scene—possibly AI-generated—depicting President Donald Trump sucking Musk’s toes with “LONG LIVE THE REAL KING” written over the loop, according to people at HUD who shared images.

The administration’s surprising about-face reflected the degree of unease among even senior Trump officials about the scale and ambition of Musk’s effort to gut the federal government, which has already disrupted some functions. It also furthered the sense of whiplash among the government workforce. Last week, the administration moved to fire probationary employees across the government, including those who had taken a federal buyout offer, only to backtrack and say those who took the offer would be allowed to defer their resignation as planned.

While agency leaders were given discretion in whether to have employees respond to the latest OPM email asking them to do so, some departments had not signaled that they were rejecting Musk’s mandate—leaving the door open for certain federal employees to be let go if they did not comply.

Trump, speaking from the Oval Office on Monday afternoon, said federal workers who did not reply to the email would be “sort of semi-fired—or you’re fired,” in an apparent recognition of the uncertain consequences of failing to respond.

He also downplayed any perceived disconnect between his administration and Musk’s X feed. Trump suggested that the only exceptions to Musk’s email were coming from agency heads who wanted to protect sensitive information, citing the FBI and State Department.

“They don’t mean that in any way combatively, with Elon. They’re just saying there’s some people that you don’t want to really have them tell you what they’re working on last week,” Trump said. “Other than that, everyone thought it was a pretty ingenious idea.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, in a statement to The Washington Post, doubled down: “Everyone is working together as one unified team at the direction of President Trump. Any notion to the contrary is completely false.”

For his part, Musk downplayed concerns about his move, which came after Trump publicly questioned whether he was being aggressive enough in his efforts.

“Absurd that a 5 min email generates this level of concern!” Musk wrote on X. “Something is deeply wrong.”

Officials also told top HR leaders to adhere to the guidance they had already issued to their workforce on the timeline of return-to-office mandates, which includes deadlines in mid-March, the agency official on the call said. Musk posted on X on Monday that workers who had not already returned to the office would be placed on administrative leave this week.

“There’s a full revolt going on right now,” said Doug Holtz-Eakin, president of the American Action Forum, a center-right think tank. “DOGE’s stated objective was to reorganize the agencies to meet their goals, but Cabinet heads want to run their own agencies, and they are objecting to the across-the-board cuts coming from Musk’s team.”

Politico first reported the Trump administration’s decision to back off Musk’s email campaign mandate.

On Monday afternoon, many agencies began issuing guidance that their employees did not need to reply to Musk’s email—and asserting that no one would be considered as having resigned, despite what Musk said. As of the evening, officials at NASA, the Agriculture Department and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, among at least seven others, had made clear the report was optional.

At one agency, the Department of Health and Human Services, an email to staff rescinding the mandate went so far as to say that if workers opted to reply, they should “assume that what you write will be read by malign foreign actors and tailor your responses accordingly.”

In 2014, hackers working for the Chinese state breached the Office of Personnel Management’s computer system, compromising personal data of up to 4 million then-current and former federal employees.

But other agency heads, including the acting director of the personnel office itself, said their employees still needed to respond to the email, or that responding was “strongly encouraged,” according to documents obtained by The Post. At the Interior Department, employees not only still have to reply to this past weekend’s email with their accomplishments, but they will have to do the same exercise weekly, according to an email reviewed by The Post.

At the Commerce Department, Deputy Assistant Secretary Jeremy Pelter offered a compromise of sorts. He said employees should craft five bullet points “relating to your activities last week,” according to an email obtained by The Post. But staff should not send the write-up to OPM, Pelter wrote.

“That information must be provided to your first-line supervisor at Commerce; you do not need to copy other recipients at this time,” Pelter wrote. “Supervisors, ensure that you retain the responses from your employees.”

A department at Veterans Affairs’ health agency communication offered another way forward, telling employees to respond from a list of 15 prepared options for bullet points, including “Efforts to address Severe Mental Illness” to “Promoting productivity” to “Efforts to address patient safety.”

At one agency, leaders went further, making clear their employees didn’t need to respond now—or going forward.

Leadership at one division of the Energy Department emailed staff midday Monday telling them there was “no need for you to respond” to the email and warning against replying to any future emails emanating from OPM, too.

“In the event you receive any type of emails like the one you received this weekend,” the message stated, “please do not take any action. Your … senior leaders will provide guidance as soon as possible.”

On X and in private conversations, federal workers complained that the varying guidance meant to increase productivity was instead reducing it.

One TSA employee, speaking on the condition of anonymity to prevent retaliation, said they were stationed over the weekend at an airport in the Pacific Northwest. They said workers who normally check passengers for dangerous weapons and use X-ray technology to examine luggage were pulled away from their stations and forced to sit down at a computer so they could compose emails detailing how they spent the past week, creating long lines on what was already a crowded night.

“I just don’t understand it,” the employee said, referring broadly to the Musk email and also the DOGE-led effort to shrink the government. “I do think they increased inefficiency.”