In a recent cabinet meeting, President Donald Trump warned the 1 million federal employees who ignored DOGE head Elon Musk’s task completion e-mail demand of the consequences of their actions.
Addressing the issue in the meeting on Wednesday, Trump hinted at the possibility of firing them. He confirmed that his administration is “trying to find out who those people are” and is also trying to uncover the reason behind their defiance.
View this post on Instagram
To the uninformed, the statement comes after federal employees ignored an e-mail sent by Elon Musk through the Office of Personnel Management, demanding that they submit a five-point summary of the accomplishments they made/tasks they completed the previous week.
The e-mail, with the subject line “What did you do last week?” read, “Please reply to this e-mail with approx. 5 bullets of what you accomplished last week and cc your manager. Please do not send any classified information, links, or attachments. Deadline is this Monday at 11:59 pm EST.”
Federal employees got this email at the weekend from Elon Musk via OPM (Office of Personnel Management)
byu/MoreMotivation infacepalm
Elon Musk further threatened the employees in a post made on X (formerly Twitter) with an ultimatum, saying, “Failure to respond (to the e-mail) will be taken as resignation.” Donald Trump backed this move, claiming that Musk was trying to single out non-performing members of the workforce.
Consistent with President @realDonaldTrump’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.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 22, 2025
Shortly after, Donald Trump commented on the situation during a press conference, and said, “I thought it was great because we have people that don’t show up to work, and nobody even knows if they work for the government. And then if you don’t answer like you’re sort of semi-fired or you’re fired. Because a lot of people are not answering because they don’t even exist.”
The President lauded the move made by Musk, saying, “I think it was actually there was a lot of genius in (Musk) sending (the e-mail). If people don’t respond, it’s very possible that there is no such person or they’re not working.”
This is a real picture pic.twitter.com/HFSxrpbiju
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 20, 2025
In his first public statement on the situation since then, Donald Trump emulated a stance similar to Musk’s and warned the employees who defied the demand.
“Maybe they’re going to be gone, maybe they’re not around, maybe they have other jobs, maybe they moved and they’re not where they’re supposed to be. Right now we’re trying to find out who those people are that haven’t responded,” President Trump said.
On the same day, the Donald Trump Administration sent a memo directing federal agencies to develop plans for terminating employees. The memo solidified the President’s plan to significantly downsize the federal workforce, which he has found to be overstaffed and an obstacle to his agenda.
Several probationary federal workers have already been dismissed. The Donald Trump administration is now focused on tenured employees and has ordered agencies to submit their workforce reduction strategies by March 13. It must also be emphasized that once a person is fired, the role will also be eradicated from the system.
