Small Business Administration head Kelly Loeffler was perplexed over the drama created by a prompt to federal employees to list five things they had accomplished, suggesting it is “laughable” that some are resisting it.
The Department of Government Efficiency had recently mandated federal employees to provide weekly updates on what they had accomplished on a weekly basis, which has since been added to a lawsuit by federal employees for the Trump administration’s mass firings. Despite some of the resistance some have, Loeffler confirmed that other employees had succeeded in responding, jumping over the “low” bar set by DOGE and the Trump administration.
“The bar is so low, a kindergartener can come home and name five things they did,” Loeffler stated on Fox News’s Fox & Friends. “Small businesses do five things in five minutes. This is what we have to get back to, is the accountability. So I look forward to making sure we get all the responses back, and for those that we don’t, we have decisions to make.”
Elon Musk, the head of DOGE, revealed on Monday that the email request was “utterly trivial” since employees merely had to type a few words before sending their email, but “so many” still failed to achieve even this. He added that the “incompetence” seen from employees at the federal government “makes old Twitter look good,” referring to how he revamped Twitter into X and employee conduct at the social media platform.
The email request was utterly trivial, as the standard for passing the test was to type some words and press send!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 24, 2025
Yet so many failed even that inane test, urged on in some cases by their managers.
Have you ever witnessed such INCOMPETENCE and CONTEMPT for how YOUR TAXES are… https://t.co/QjSmY4ezpg
Loeffler detailed how she informed her employees at SBA to answer daily what they had accomplished for small businesses, and they should be able to do so “very easily.” Loeffler was just confirmed into the Trump administration by the Senate last week.
Another factor that SBA employees must contend with is returning to work. Loeffler described how it felt like “tumbleweeds” were found at SBA HQ when she visited on Friday. Just days later she said it was “amazing” to see roughly 80% of employees working in-person again.
DOGE’S THUNDER RUN THROUGH THE BUREAUCRACY
Amid DOGE’s work on the federal government, several state governments have expressed interest in creating their own effort to downsize their government and eliminate waste. Among these states are Florida, Georgia, Iowa, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, and Missouri.
Rep. Rich McCormick (R-GA), meanwhile, has expressed concern that Musk’s DOGE is moving “a little too fast,” and that proper impact studies ought to be conducted on every department impacted by DOGE’s cuts.