Several Trump administration officials have instructed their employees not to comply with Elon Musk’s directive to summarize weekly accomplishments or face removal. Agencies like the F.B.I., State Department, and the office of national intelligence advised employees to disregard Musk’s demand, emphasizing their independence in performance reviews. Unions representing federal workers deemed Musk’s order invalid and encouraged members to follow management guidance. Concerns arose about potential risks of disclosing classified information, while Musk insisted the request was a routine check. He also promoted unfounded claims of fraud in the federal workforce, which drew criticism from various officials.
Several officials from the Trump administration leading federal agencies have advised their employees against complying with Elon Musk’s directive to summarize their accomplishments from the past week or face removal from their positions. This came even as Mr. Musk reinforced his demand over the weekend. As the directive reverberated through the federal government on Saturday evening, officials from agencies such as the F.B.I., the State Department, and the office overseeing America’s intelligence agencies instructed their employees not to respond. These instructions effectively contradicted Musk’s order in certain areas of the government, calling into question the extensive authority President Trump had delegated to Musk, the wealthiest man in the world, to scrutinize the federal bureaucracy.
“The State Department will respond on behalf of the State Department,” stated Tibor Nagy, a Trump appointee serving as the department’s acting under secretary for management. “No employee is obligated to report their activities outside of their department chain of command.” Tulsi Gabbard, the director of the office of national intelligence, directed all intelligence community officers not to respond, as indicated in a message reviewed by The New York Times. “Given the inherently sensitive and classified nature of our work, I.C. employees should not respond to the OPM email,” Ms. Gabbard noted.
Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, asserted that “the F.B.I., through the office of the director, is in charge of all our review processes,” advising employees to “for now, please pause any responses.” At both the Justice Department and the F.B.I., Musk’s alarming communications were met with a mix of anger and disbelief that anyone would make such a sweeping demand without considering sensitive topics such as criminal investigations, legal confidentiality, or grand jury materials. Some law enforcement supervisors quickly instructed employees to wait for further direction from management on Monday before reacting to Musk’s demand, according to current and former officials. Furthermore, employees at the Defense Department were also advised not to comply with the email.
“The Department of Defense is responsible for reviewing the performance of its personnel, and it will conduct any review in accordance with its own procedures,” said Darin S. Selnick, the acting official at the Pentagon responsible for personnel, in a statement. On Saturday, Mr. Musk made a public request for government employees to summarize their weekly accomplishments, warning that failure to comply would be considered a resignation. Shortly thereafter, the Office of Personnel Management, which oversees the federal workforce, sent an email asking civil servants for a list of their accomplishments, but it did not include a threat of removal for noncompliance.
Unions representing federal workers contended that Mr. Musk’s order lacked validity, advising their members to follow guidance from supervisors on how, or whether, to respond. “We will formally request that O.P.M. rescind the email and clarify under what authority it was issued,” stated the American Federation of Government Employees to its members late on Saturday. Everett Kelley, the union’s president, remarked that the order illustrated Mr. Musk and the Trump administration’s “utter disdain for federal employees.”
Multiple intelligence agencies, including the National Security Agency, had alerted employees that responding could inadvertently reveal classified information. Despite Musk’s original email instructing employees not to include classified material, current and former intelligence officials warned that if an adversary accessed the accounts of numerous intelligence officers, it could piece together sensitive information or discover secret projects.
Representative Mike Lawler, a New York Republican whose seat may be among the most fiercely contested in 2026, expressed skepticism about the order while generally supporting Mr. Musk’s cost-cutting initiatives. “I don’t know how that’s necessarily feasible,” Mr. Lawler remarked concerning the ultimatum. “Obviously, a lot of federal employees are under union contract.” However, he added, “There’s no question, as the Department of Government Efficiency moves ahead, what they are seeking to do is ensure that every agency and department is effectively and efficiently doing their job.”
It remains unclear what legal grounds Mr. Musk might have to substantiate mass dismissals based on responses to the email, and the White House and the Office of Personnel Management did not immediately respond to inquiries regarding the threat of removal. Nevertheless, Mr. Musk—who previously made similar unconventional demands during his takeover of Twitter, now named X—asserted on Sunday morning that the order represented “a very basic pulse check.” In a series of posts, he also propagated unfounded claims of wage fraud, asserting that a significant number of “non-existent” or deceased individuals were on the federal payroll and that criminals were exploiting these fake employees to collect government benefits.
“They are covering immense fraud,” Mr. Musk stated in response to a supporter’s post claiming that “the left is flipping out about a simple email.” In another post, he shared a meme depicting some federal employees as terrorized by the order. His claims echo similar allegations that tens of millions of deceased people may be receiving fraudulent Social Security payments. A recent report from the Social Security Administration’s inspector general—a watchdog investigating waste, fraud, and abuse in the program—found that “almost none” of the individuals in the agency’s database who were likely deceased were receiving payments. Reporting was contributed by Julian E. Barnes, Devlin Barrett, Ken Bensinger, Kate Conger, Minho Kim, Lisa Friedman, and Margot Sanger-Katz.