Elon Musk’s demand for a list of accomplishments from federal workers is “great,” President Trump said Monday, throwing his weight behind the idea even as managers in his administration remain conflicted about compliance.
Mr. Trump said the request from Mr. Musk, a billionaire who is slashing federal spending and payroll, is a way to find out who is reporting to work and what they are doing.
“I thought it was great because we have people who don’t show up to work,” Mr. Trump said. “What he’s doing is saying, ‘Are you actually working?’”
Mr. Musk, head of the Department of Government Efficiency, issued the justify-your-job ultimatum Saturday, soon after the president encouraged him to be more “aggressive” in his cost-cutting efforts.
“Consistent with President [Trump’s] instructions, all federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week,” Mr. Musk posted on X. “Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.”
The Office of Personnel Management emailed federal employees shortly after Mr. Musk’s tweet with the subject line “What did you do last week?”
The directive sparked a lawsuit from unionized government workers and mass confusion at agencies.
While some agency heads said workers should respond Monday, leaders at the Pentagon, the State Department, Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence indicated that workers did not need to respond and managers would handle the situation.
FBI Director Kash Patel had led the refusal by directing bureau staff to ignore the request.
The Department of Health and Human Services initially told employees to respond on Sunday but then told them to hold off, according to multiple media reports.
Mr. Trump had no reservations. He characterized Mr. Musk’s tactics as a fact-finding mission.
“A lot of people are not answering because they don’t even exist. Are we paying other people who aren’t working?” Mr. Trump said.
He said the DOGE effort found “hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud.”
“We’ve just started,” he said.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.