MAGA split as FBI chief orders staff to ignore Musk's mass email asking federal workers what they did this week

24 February 2025, 05:15

A split appears to have emerged within Donald Trump's allies, as the head of the FBI ordered his staff not to reply to a mass email from Elon Musk demanding to know what federal workers achieved in the week.

Mr Musk's team sent an email to hundreds of thousands of federal employees on Saturday giving them roughly 48 hours to report five specific things they had got done last week.

In a separate message on social media, Mr Musk said any employee who failed to respond by the deadline - set in the email as 11:59pm Eastern Standard Time on Monday - would lose their job.

Mr Trump appears to be supportive of Mr Musk's initiative, which he sees as an efficiency measure as he seeks to reduce the size of the federal government.

Democrats and even some Republicans were critical of Mr Musk's ultimatum, which came just hours after Mr Trump encouraged him on social media to "get more aggressive" in reducing the size of the government through his so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or Doge.

But Kash Patel, Mr Trump's pick for FBI director, said staff should not reply.

"The FBI, through the Office of the Director, is in charge of all of our review processes, and will conduct reviews in accordance with FBI procedures," Mr Patel wrote in an email.

"When and if further information is required, we will coordinate the responses. For now, please pause any responses."

Officials at the Departments of State and Defence also said that workers should not respond for now.

"The Department of Defense is responsible for reviewing the performance of its personnel and it will conduct any review in accordance with its own procedures," according to an email from Jules Hurst, the deputy undersecretary of defence for personnel and readiness.

"When and if required, the Department will coordinate responses."

The day before he announced that these emails would be sent, Mr Musk celebrated his new position by waving a giant chainsaw during an appearance at a conservative conference.

Mr Trump mocked the affected workers in a meme he posted on Sunday on his social media network. The post featured a cartoon character writing a list of accomplishments from the previous week led by, "Cried about Mr Trump", "Cried about Elon", "Made it into the office for once", and "Read some emails".

Ed Martin, the interim US attorney for the District of Columbia, sent his staff a message on Sunday that may cause more confusion. Mr Martin noted that he responded to Mr Musk's order.

"Let me clarify: We will comply with this OPM request whether by replying or deciding not to reply," Mr Martin wrote in the email obtained by the AP, referring to the Office of Personnel Management.

"Please make a good faith effort to reply and list your activities (or not, as you prefer), and I will, as I mentioned, have your back regarding any confusion," Mr Martin continued. "We can do this."

The night before, Mr Martin had instructed staff to comply. "DOGE and Elon are doing great work. Historic. We are happy to participate," Mr Martin wrote at that time.

Union chiefs are furious with the email and demanded that Mr Musk say sorry.

Everett Kelley, president of the 800,000-member American Federation of Government Employees, said in a letter on Sunday to the administration that it should rescind Mr Musk's original email request and apologise to all federal workers by the end of the day.

"We believe that employees have no obligation to respond to this plainly unlawful email absent other lawful direction," he wrote, describing Mr Musk as "unelected and unhinged".

Thousands of government employees have already been forced out of the federal workforce - either by being fired or through a "deferred resignation" offer - during the first month of Mr Trump's second term.

There is no official figure available for the total firings or layoffs so far, but the AP has tallied hundreds of thousands of workers who are being affected. Many work outside of Washington.

Mr Musk on Sunday called his latest request "a very basic pulse check".

"The reason this matters is that a significant number of people who are supposed to be working for the government are doing so little work that they are not checking their email at all!" Mr Musk wrote on X. "In some cases, we believe non-existent people or the identities of dead people are being used to collect paychecks. In other words, there is outright fraud."

He has provided no evidence of such fraud. Separately, Mr Musk and Mr Trump have falsely claimed in recent days that tens of millions of dead people over 100 years old are receiving Social Security payments.