The White House announced that more than one million federal employees have responded to Elon Musk’s “What did you do last week?” email, roughly a third of the federal workforce.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced the milestone in a Tuesday press conference, “All federal workers should be working at the same pace as President Trump is working and moving.”
“This is to ensure that federal workers are not ripping off American taxpayers, that they are showing up to the office and that they are doing their jobs,” Leavitt said, per Politco.
The federal government’s workforce has grown to approximately 3 million employees, making it one of the nation’s largest employers with an annual budget impact of hundreds of billions in taxpayer dollars.
Elon Musk announced on Saturday that federal employees would be required to respond to an email from their manager listing five things they had accomplished that week, “Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation,” Musk said on X.
Musk’s directive initially caused chaos in D.C., as several agency heads contradicted Musk and told their employees not to respond, while others reportedly said the email response was voluntary.
The Office of Personnel Management quickly confirmed that Musk’s directive would take effect for agencies that had not opted out, as part of the Trump administration’s “commitment to an efficient and accountable federal workforce,” OPM spokeswoman McLaurine Pinover said in a statement.
Though the initial deadline was Monday, that appears to have been extended, with Musk writing on X, “Subject to the discretion of the President, [Federal workers] will be given another chance. Failure to respond a second time will result in termination.” An exact date is still not confirmed.
Despite these mixed messages, the relatively high response rate indicates many federal employees chose to comply with the request rather than risk potential job loss.
In the press conference, Leavitt clarified that the president approved of certain departments not participating in the initiative, saying that “the agency heads will determine the best practices for their employees at their specific agencies.”
Leavitt affirmed, “The president and Elon and his entire Cabinet are working as one unified team, and they are implementing these very common sense solutions.”