President Trump moved Wednesday to quell any dissent among his top officials about Elon Musk’s efforts to reduce the federal workforce by defending a controversial email sent at the tech billionaire’s behest asking federal workers to explain their jobs.

During the first Cabinet meeting of his second term, Mr. Trump insisted that Cabinet members are supportive of the Musk-led effort to ask every federal employee to provide a list of five things they accomplished last week. Mr. Musk, who is not a Cabinet member, attended the meeting but did not sit at the table.

“I think everyone at this table is very much behind it and if they aren’t I want them to speak up, but they are very much behind it,” Mr. Trump said of his Cabinet.

Later, Mr. Trump urged his Cabinet secretaries “to speak up” if they weren’t happy with Mr. Musk or the letter.

“Is anybody unhappy with Elon?” Mr. Trump asked. “If you are, we’ll throw him out of here.”

Mr. Trump’s defense comes as Mr. Musk has started to run into opposition from Cabinet members in his push to slash federal spending and government workers. In recent days, he has said federal employees must respond to an email by describing five things they accomplished last week or face termination, sparking pushback from department heads. 

Several agencies run by Cabinet members told their employees to ignore the email.

Mr. Musk said that the president approved the email, which caught Cabinet secretaries off guard, and Mr. Trump told him to send it. 

He said the email was not meant as a performance review, calling it a “pulse check” to search for phantom employees.

“There are a number of people who are dead, which is probably why they can’t respond, and that some people who are not real people. Like they’re literally fictional individuals that are collecting paychecks,” Mr. Musk said. “So we’re literally trying to figure out if these people are real.”

• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.