Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk took a controversial step last week after taking over the brand-new Office of Government Efficiency (DOGE) by requiring all United States federal employees to submit weekly reports of what they accomplished. The order says that employees who refuse or fail to comply will be considered to have voluntarily resigned.
The move has raised questions about government workforce management, efficiency, and the implications for federal employee job security going forward.
What Musk’s Directive Means for Federal Workers
Musk’s latest directive mandates that all federal employees submit a brief weekly overview of their accomplishments in their positions. Musk states that the objective is to enhance government efficiency, remove inefficiencies, and reduce expenses.
President Donald Trump has openly endorsed Musk’s initiative, cautioning that workers who do not submit their reports will be terminated or “semi-terminated.” The Trump administration contends that this accountability initiative will assist in pinpointing unnecessary positions and enhancing the efficiency and simplicity of government operations. Nonetheless, not everyone agrees with this extreme method.
Concerns Over the Mandate
Thousands of federal workers and their advocates have expressed concern about Musk’s directive, which they say was abrupt and inequitable. Such a policy is naive, some believe, which ignores the long, arduous process of governance where success is not necessarily built of week-by-week insulated actions but of the long-term task of passing legislation and working with staff.
Moreover, agencies such as the FBI and the Pentagon are said to have told their workforce to ignore the email directive under grounds of not having authoritative legitimacy. This has resulted in confusion among workers who are uncertain whether they are required to comply or will face termination.
In addition, labor unions that represent government workers have been warning of possible mass layoffs. They time and again point out that public sector jobs, winely, cannot be analysed in the same lens as private-sector roles, where revenue generation frequently makes for a quick metric of their output.
The Role of Automation in Government Layoffs
In addition to weekly accomplishment reporting, Musk’s department is building an Automated Reduction in Force (AutoRIF) system — software that will automatically identify and fire “underperformers.”
Using such an automated system could lead to unjust dismissals, critics said, noting that decision-making tools driven by AI do not necessarily comprehend the nuance of government work. There is also fear that this could cause mass job losses without adequate human oversight.
Public and Political Backlash
The policy has triggered public outcry, with voters confronting Republican lawmakers about the job security crisis Musk’s directive has created. While some conservative politicians continue to back the initiative as a way to reduce government waste, others have started distancing themselves, worried about potential political fallout.
Some lawmakers are also calling for greater legislative control over executive decisions that impact government employees, arguing that Musk’s authority should not be unchecked.
The Bigger Picture
Beyond Musk’s demand for weekly lists of accomplishments and the creation of automated tools to cut the workforce, the broader issue is part of a continuing debate about the balance between government efficiency and worker rights. Although many Americans support bureaucracy cutting, waste reduction and so on, many fear that this will damage the public sector workforce and disrupt important services.
With government employees, labor unions and lawmakers fighting back, it is unclear if Musk’s policies will be fully implemented or if they will face legal and political challenges.
For now, federal workers face a stark choice: Submit weekly accomplishment reports or risk losing their jobs.
As the deadline to reply to the email neared, Musk said Monday night that “Subject to the discretion of the President, they will be given another chance. If there is no response for a second time, the contract will also be terminated.”
Musk addressed the backlash over the order in a separate post on Monday.
“The request on the email was incredibly simple as i mean the minimum to pass the test was to write some words and click on send!!! And yet so many of them failed even that inane test, spurred on in some cases by their managers. “Have you ever seen such incompetence and disrespect for how your taxes are being spent?’
Trump, for his own part, praised Musk’s efforts on Monday.
“There was a lot of genius in sending it,” Trump said to reporters. “If nobody responds, maybe there is no such person, or they are not working.”
One agency employee whom NBC News reached who spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisal, said managers sent examples of model responses to the email “as empathy for their staff.”
Asking employees to explain what they are working on is by no means a bad strategy as “workforces do this all the time,” Peter Harms, a professor at the University of Alabama’s Culverhouse College of Business, previously told Fortune’s Sasha Rogelberg. Musk did the same when he bought Twitter, now X, in 2022. But, as Rogelberg pointed out, just getting two million federal workers to spend even five minutes responding to an email like this could be incredibly expensive for the government.
