Elon Musk Email War – Elon Musk email to federal employees row

The email war between tech titan Elon Musk and the Donald Trump administration intensified on Tuesday after the DOGE chief renewed his threat to fire federal employees if they fail to respond to his email requesting recent accomplishments. As the deadline ended on Monday, with several US departments telling their employees not to comply with the unprecedented email, Musk issued another ultimatum.

“Subject to the discretion of the president, they will be given another chance. Failure to respond a second time will result in termination,” the DOGE chief, who has been tasked with slashing government spending, said.

Musk’s ultimatum came following pushback from several top departments, like the FBI, State Department and Pentagon, which instructed employees not to answer to the mail.

“The email request was utterly trivial, as the standard for passing the test was to type some words and press send! Yet so many failed even that inane test, urged on in some cases by their managers,” the Tesla chief tweeted in a seemingly veiled jibe to the pushback.

While the White House has not officially reacted to the row, US President Donald Trump backed Musk’s plan during a joint media briefing with French President Emmanuel Macron. Trump called it a “great” move, saying “there was a lot of genius in sending it”.

“What he (Musk) is doing is saying, ‘Are you actually working?’… And then, if you don’t answer, like, you’re sort of semi-fired, or you’re fired, because a lot of people aren’t answering because they don’t even exist,” Trump said.

WHAT LED TO THE CONTROVERSY?

The controversy started after nearly 3 million US government employees received an official email on Saturday asking them to submit bullet-point summaries of their work last week – another development that signalled Musk’s growing authority.

Even though the email did not mention any consequences for not complying, Musk posted on social media that failure to respond “will be taken as a resignation”.

The email took several agencies by surprise, with departments like Homeland Security, FBI (under Kash Patel), National Intelligence (under Tulsi Gabbard), asking their employees to pause any responses. While the Treasury Department asked its staffers to reply to the email, others said it was “voluntary”, leading to uncertainty among the rank and file.

The fresh development comes as the Trump administration’s aim to reduce government spending by shrinking the federal workforce gains pace. Earlier this month, tens of thousands of government workers accepted an offer from the administration to resign as part of a buyout plan where they would be given their salaries till September 2025.