Federal agencies push back on Elon Musk’s ‘What did you do last week?’ Email

The effort marked an escalation of the Trump administration’s push to scale back the scope of government, with Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, exerting growing pressure on the 2.3 million employees in the federal workforce. DOGE has pressured federal employees to quit, and the administration has fired thousands of newly hired workers, often without providing specific reasons for their dismissal.

Musk over the weekend, in a post on X, said that “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.”

The email, which asked “What did you do last week?” in the subject line, told federal workers to respond by 11:59 p.m. Monday with a list of “5 bullets of what you accomplished last week.” The note didn’t say that nonresponses would be considered resignations.

Musk’s moves have rattled career government employees for weeks, but the Saturday email appeared to prompt the most push back so far by other top administration officials. Perhaps most prominently, Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Kash Patel told employees to “pause any response” to Musk’s note.

Some officials across the government including at the State, Justice and Health and Human Services departments sent similar emails to their teams, according to people familiar with the matter and messages viewed by The Wall Street Journal.

Musk’s plan came together in a matter of hours on Saturday, according to people familiar with the matter. Early in the day, President Trump posted on social media that he wanted the Tesla chief executive to “get more aggressive” with his role. In response, Musk and his team at DOGE jumped into high gear to implement the what-did-you-do-last-week email, the people said. Musk’s effort mirrored a similar pressure campaign on Twitter employees after he purchased the social-media company in 2022 before later renaming it X.

Musk and DOGE officials then communicated the concept to the Office of Personnel Management, the human resources arm of the federal government, which sent the email to some two million federal workers Saturday evening. Musk said in his post on X announcing the email that the correspondence was “consistent with [President Trump’s] instructions.”

It remained unclear how OPM or DOGE itself would be able to review potentially millions of detailed emails by federal employees. Dozens of workers have been fired at OPM, and the Trump administration has indicated it plans to cut 70% of the agency’s staff. One OPM employee questioned whether the agency is allowed to give work orders to workers in other agencies.

Trump appeared to stand by Musk in a post on his Truth Social platform Sunday. In it, the president posted a picture of the television character SpongeBob SquarePants with a checklist of grievances people may have with him and Musk.

“Cried about Elon and Trump some more,” the post reads under the heading: “Got Done Last Week.”

Musk and a representative for DOGE didn’t return a request for comment, but Musk defended the effort on X on Sunday. “The reason this matters is that a significant number of people who are supposed to be working for the government are doing so little work that they are not checking their email at all!” he wrote.

An OPM spokeswoman declined to comment.

The acting head of the Department of Health and Human Services’ main legal division told employees in his office, who number around 800, not to respond to the OPM email.

“I have national security concerns,” acting general counsel Sean Keveney wrote Sunday morning in an email viewed by the Journal. He noted that email was sent to millions of federal workers and that OPM was targeted by China in the past. “I have received no assurances that there are appropriate protections in place to safeguard responses to this email,” Keveney wrote.

In a separate email sent to a wider swath of HHS employees, health workers were instructed to reply to Musk’s missive. “This is a legitimate email,” the unsigned email said.

Rep. Gerald Connolly (D., Va.), ranking member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said the conflicting guidance leaves federal workers in a precarious spot.

“Which one do they follow? If they don’t do it correctly, whatever that is, are they at risk of losing their jobs inadvertently?” he said in an interview. He said the effort “puts hundreds of thousands of federal employees at risk needlessly and creates more stress and consternation.”

State Department employees were told that they didn’t have to report their activities outside of their chain of command. “The State Department will respond on behalf of the Department,” Under Secretary for Management Tibor Nagy wrote in an email viewed by the Journal. A State Department official said Nagy’s pushback was a surprise to some colleagues, “but there’s only so much of this you can tolerate.”

Patel wrote in an email to staff that the agency “will conduct reviews in accordance with FBI procedures.” He told FBI employees to “pause any response” to the OPM email. Erin Moore, the Energy Department’s Chief Human Capital Officer, told employees to monitor their emails on Monday for further instructions, according to a message seen by the Journal.

Federal workers said the request ran counter to their typical adherence to the chain of command.

Federal workers across the country said they were baffled by the request and said it ran counter to their typical adherence to the chain of command. An official at the Centers for Disease and Control and Prevention who has served at the agency for three decades said in an email that the OPM directive was unprofessional and “just plain creepy.”

A federal park worker with the Bureau of Land Management learned of the email Saturday, standing out in the cold and rain to monitor a marine tide-pool area. An employee in food safety with the U.S. Department of Agriculture saw the email Sunday morning and was confused over whether a lack of response would result in termination.

Veterans Affairs medical staff scrambled to determine how they should respond to the email with five bullet points, given their singular mission is to provide lifesaving care for patients daily, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Unions representing government employees urged caution. The American Foreign Service Association said it would oppose “unlawful” efforts to terminate members, saying the email disparages public servants “by making them prove their value.”

In a letter Sunday, Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, told acting OPM director Charles Ezell that the email didn’t identify OPM’s legal authority to demand the requested information. Kelley said OPM “demonstrated a lack of regard for the integrity of federal employees and their critical work.”

Kelley also told members to ask their supervisors whether and how to respond, including the type of information that can be shared with OPM. A different union, the National Federation of Federal Employees, told members it would challenge any disciplinary action against employees in connection with the request.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) said on Fox News on Sunday that it should be easy for federal workers to detail their work accomplishments. “You can name the five things you did last week. I can,” he said.

Write to Brian Schwartz at brian.schwartz@wsj.com, Lindsay Ellis at lindsay.ellis@wsj.com and Scott Patterson at scott.patterson@wsj.com