White House says follow agency heads, not Musk, on employee directive

The White House on Tuesday said Cabinet secretaries would have final say over whether employees need to respond to an Elon Musk-inspired memo asking workers to list five accomplishments from the past week.

Musk has spurred confusion with his call for federal workers to send their bosses a list of accomplishments, or face termination. But press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that President Trump was giving agency heads final say on whether employees needed to reply at all.

“The president defers to his Cabinet secretaries who he’s obviously entrusted to pursue the guidance relative to their specific workforce,” Leavitt said. “And for some of the agencies that you’ve seen that have said ‘please don’t send these emails,’ it’s in their best interest for that specific agency, and the president supports that.”

Musk posted on X over the weekend that all federal employees should send five bullet notes of what they accomplished in the week prior by 11:59 p.m. EST Monday or face removal. In a follow up post on Monday, he said employees would be given a second chance, and that failure to respond would result in “termination.”

“Again the agency heads will determine the best practices for their employees at their specific agencies,” Leavitt said Tuesday.

She added that the government has thus far received more than 1 million responses.

“This is to ensure that federal workers are not ripping off American taxpayers, that they are showing up to the office and that they are doing their jobs,” Leavitt said.

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) informed agency leaders on Monday that employee response to an email asking for a recap of what they accomplished last week is voluntary and that failure to do so will not be considered a resignation.

Several departments have instructed employees not to respond to the email.

In a message to staff Saturday, FBI Director Kash Patel said that “when and if further information is required, we will coordinate the responses. For now, please pause any responses.”

Trump on Monday called Musk’s directive “genius.”

“There was a lot of genius in sending it,” Trump said. “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.”

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