Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) recently sought information from federal government employees regarding work they completed in the previous week. 

The productivity requests, which came in the form of emails from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), asked federal workers to detail what they did in the past week using five bullet points. They had until 11:59 p.m. on Monday to provide their responses to the inquiry. 

Musk, who heads up DOGE, said Saturday afternoon that "failure to respond will be taken as a resignation."  

"To be clear, the bar is very low here," he said in a subsequent X post. "An email with some bullet points that make any sense at all is acceptable! Should take less than 5 mins to write." 

Trump and Musk have both said the primary goal of DOGE is to significantly pare back spending and boost efficiency within the federal government. 

Andres Lares, the managing partner of Shapiro Negotiations Institute, told FOX Business that "asking in a sudden and unexpected way for employees to list accomplishments is rarely effective for workplace motivation." 

"Abrupt demands with severe consequences typically create fear rather than engagement," he explained. "Research shows that trust-based accountability systems generally yield better results than threat-based ones. It may work for some, and the accountability and directness of these requests have elements that are valuable, but it may be too short-term – getting some quick wins at the cost of some significant cultural setbacks." 

Lares said that while holding workers accountable for their performance "has merit," the manner of the request that DOGE made usually brings "hastily compiled, low-quality information" that takes significant time and resources to go through. He also noted that an employee’s work "goes beyond the answer to one email," a balance that "will be challenging for DOGE to manage." 

The federal government and private-sector businesses operate very differently, Lares and another expert told FOX Business.

"What works in a fast-moving tech company may not translate well to government structures designed for stability and consistent service delivery," Lares said. "There are certainly some benefits to government acting more like a business, but in many cases this may not be possible, at least not in the short term based on structural constraints." 

Jonathan Alpert, a psychotherapist and executive performance coach, similarly noted the government and Silicon Valley have "fundamentally different" cultures. 

"The private sector, particularly Musk’s world, is built on speed, efficiency, and sometimes brute-force problem-solving," he said. "The government operates within a framework of checks, balances, and bureaucratic processes that can slow decision-making. Implementing a high-frequency progress update system in government could increase efficiency, but it could also create high anxiety and resistance among officials who are not accustomed to such a pace (and that’s what we see playing out now)."

Worker productivity updates provide both value and risk, Alpert said, adding the "key" was balancing "frequent enough updates to drive progress without stifling the flexibility and deep thinking that complex government work often requires." 

President Donald Trump on Monday expressed support for DOGE’s email to federal government employees.

"What they’re doing is trying to find out who’s working for the government, are we paying other people that aren’t working and where is the money going," he said, alleging "if people don’t respond, it’s very possible that there is no such person or they’re not working." 

Several agencies told their workers not to reply to the DOGE team’s email, FOX Business reported Monday. Trump said such instructions were not meant "in any way combatively with Elon." 

"That was done in a friendly manner. Only things such as, perhaps Marco [Rubio] at State Department, where they have very confidential things, or the FBI where they’re working on confidential things," the president said. "They’re just saying there are some people that you don’t want to really have them tell you what they’re working on last week. But other than that, I think everyone thought it was a pretty ingenious idea." 

"We have to find out where these people are, who are they, and we said, ‘If you don’t respond, we assume you’re not around, and you’re not getting paid anymore too.’"

The American Federation of Government Employees has slammed DOGE’s email to federal workers, calling it "improper" and saying it was "meant to intimidate federal employees and cause mass confusion."  

Trump used an executive order to form DOGE not long after he took office on Jan. 20. It is expected to complete its cost-cutting efforts by early July of next year. 

Overall, DOGE is seeking to trim $2 trillion in government spending, with Musk telling Stagwell Inc. CEO Mark Penn in early January that it had a "good shot at getting" $1 trillion.

Jay Caruso and Eric Revell contributed to this report.