Trump administration backtracks from latest Musk storm

The Trump administration on Monday appeared to be quickly retreating from Elon Musk's demand that all federal workers send an email by the end of the day highlighting their achievements or resign.

The missive from Musk, which echoed a tactic he used during his 2022 takeover of the social platform X, then known as Twitter, led to a chaotic weekend for thousands of federal workers. Allies or Trump picks leading federal agencies, including FBI Director Kash Patel, told their workers to ignore the order and that they would make decisions on their own personnel.

By Monday afternoon, responding to the email was voluntary, according to guidance from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), a clear signal that even within the administration, some saw Musk as having gone too far.

On Capitol Hill, Republicans criticized Musk, saying what he had done was inappropriate.

"I don't think it was handled very well in terms of the surprise element of it or what the point of it was," Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) said. "That I think was confusing, because I think there were a couple different explanations. I think a little clarification on the voluntary part is probably good."

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said the demand was outside Musk's purview.

"I was glad to see some of the new department and agency heads push back against that. It should not be Elon Musk's call, and I was glad to see the pushback," Collins said.

A source close to Trump's orbit said Musk’s carelessness with his communications and lack of respect for agency heads is at issue.

“Musk is taking water unnecessarily. He underestimates Patel’s political power, less Rubio, Gabbard, and carelessly lacks a sustained, proactive communications effort that articulates not just the macro ‘CUT’ message but one that also manages the day-to-day drip of Washington process media,” the source said, referring to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.

Federal employees received a three-sentence email Saturday from OPM, directing them to respond with five bullet points about what they accomplished over the past week by 11:59 p.m. EST Monday.

In a separate post on X, Musk, who is leading the Department of Government Efficiency's (DOGE) push to cut trillions of dollars in government spending, warned that failure to respond would “be taken as a resignation.” However, OPM clarified in new guidance Monday afternoon to human resources officers at every agency that response to the email is voluntary, undercutting Musk’s threats.

President Trump on Monday, in his first comments about the email after he was notably silent amid the pushback, defended Musk.

“There was a lot of genius in sending it. We’re trying to find out if people are working and so we’re sending a letter to people, 'Please tell us what you did last week.' If people don’t respond, it’s very possible that there is no such person or they’re not working,” Trump said.

But Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) laid into the effort as "callous."

"[Office of Management and Budget Director Russel Vought] wanted to traumatize the workforce. I think he's doing a pretty good job on that," Warner said. "... This is callous, careless, irresponsible. It's going to chase away our best federal workers, and that's going to end up costing money."

An administration official told The Hill that everything Musk puts out, like the weekend email, is in coordination with Trump, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and other senior advisers, and that Musk’s requests should be seen as directly from the president because OPM is a component of the White House.

The order in the email “really instructs each agency and department to come up with a system that works well for them,” the official said, adding that there is not a “one-size-fits-all approach” to cuts to the federal government.

Some agencies, like the FBI and State Department, have rules about sensitive information regarding national security that can’t be transmitted over email, the official said, attributing some department responses to those rules.

Patel has his own plans for carrying out FBI workforce reductions and, in a message to staff Saturday, said that “when and if further information is required, we will coordinate the responses. For now, please pause any responses.”

The FBI is facing litigation brought by its own agents after the Justice Department demanded a detailed breakdown of the role and actions taken by some 5,000 agents who worked on Jan. 6, 2021, cases. Litigants — after much back and forth — were able to secure a promise from the department to not release the names of agents who cited fears of retaliation.

There has also been a purge of top FBI leadership, as well as the firing of prosecutors who have worked on Trump’s two criminal cases. And, Patel has been accused of directing firings at the FBI well before his confirmation as the agency’s director.

Like Patel, Gabbard advised intelligence community staff not to respond to the email. The State Department will respond to the request on behalf of its employees, a spokesperson told The Hill.

The Department of Homeland Security leadership sent an email to its more than 250,000 employees likewise directing them not to respond to the email, as well as the Department of Justice and the Pentagon.

Other Trump officials supported Musk and his request, such as Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who shared Monday his own five accomplishments from last week in a post on X.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), which told employees to halt all work earlier this month amid what is widely seen as a push to effectively dismantle the agency, similarly directed employees to respond to the email.

“CFPB leadership understands that certain work tasks have stopped,” said Adam Martinez, the agency’s chief operating officer. “If you were not able to perform tasks/work as a result, you may reply and simply reference that you were complying with the current work stoppage.”

The response from department heads toward Musk depends on the official and their relationship with Trump, argued Stewart Verdery, who served in former President George W. Bush’s administration.

“In a more normal administration, any major decision around the federal workforce would go through layers and layers of decisionmaking, so everybody’s views get considered before an announcement,” he said.

“That’s clearly the opposite of the current approach, so you’re going to see examples where agency heads are blindsided by a tweet or a DOGE statement — each Cabinet secretary is going to have to weigh how much leeway they have with the president versus saluting and taking orders,” he added.

The email, much like other DOGE efforts, quickly drew a legal challenge.

The American Federation of Government Employees and several other unions expanded a previous lawsuit against the Trump administration Monday to challenge Musk’s threat to fire workers who fail to respond to the OPM email.

Trump appears to have given Musk wide latitude to target “waste, fraud and abuse” across the federal government, even as the tech billionaire’s exact connection to the DOGE team he leads remains unclear. The administration said in a court filing last week that Musk is not a DOGE employee or DOGE administrator. Instead, it asserted the Tesla CEO is a senior adviser to the president and an employee of the “White House Office.”

Even so, Musk seems to be leading the charge. Both Saturday’s email and an earlier email offering federal employees deferred resignation were remarkably similar to steps Musk took at X after acquiring it in 2022.

The clash illustrates the limitations of Musk’s push to approach government like a business, said Republican strategist Chris Johnson. He emphasized that many of Trump’s appointees are largely aligned with Musk but simply oppose his top-down strategy.

“This is just ultimately the culmination of what we assumed, I think a lot of people assumed, would be the issue with Elon running large swaths of government entities,” Johnson told The Hill.

“Government is not a business, and so the way that businesses are run, where you can do these big, sweeping actions from the top, was always going to run into the reality of how governments are actually run,” he added.

As DOGE continues its slash-and-burn approach to the federal government, it is increasingly facing public pushback.

Only 42 percent of voters said they support the work of DOGE to cut federal spending, while 53 percent of voters said they oppose it, a Reuters/Ipsos poll released Monday found. Among Republicans, 82 percent said they support it, while only 9 percent of Democrats do.

However, Trump on Monday pointed reporters to another poll, arguing Musk’s work is “massively popular.”

That Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll found 72 percent of registered voters support having an agency focused on ensuring government efficiency, but the same poll found voters were split on the Musk-led department having access to their own personal data and the country’s.

Rebecca Beitsch and Al Weaver contributed.

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