Musk's demand to government workers opens fissures in Trump administration

By Andy Sullivan and Jonathan Landay

Elon Musk's order to U.S. government workers to justify their jobs opened divisions in President Donald Trump's administration, as some agencies told workers to respond to the chainsaw-wielding billionaire by Monday night and others said to ignore him.

Musk's directive to the nation's 2.3 million civil-service workers to provide a five-point summary of their work by 11:59 p.m. Eastern time (0459 GMT) raised questions about how much authority the world's richest person can wield in Trump's government as he leads an effort to slash the federal payroll.

The countermanding of his order by some agency officials was also the first known internal pushback against Musk's blunt-force approach to overhauling the federal government.

Musk's downsizing effort has laid off more than more than 20,000 workers so far, and he warned that those who do not comply with his order could likewise lose their jobs.

"Those who do not take this email seriously will soon be furthering their career elsewhere," he wrote on his social media platform X.

But leaders of the Defense, State, and Homeland Security departments, the FBI and several other agencies told workers not to respond outside their established chain of command.

The Department of Health and Human Services told its workers to hold off while it figured out how to "best meet the intent" of Musk's unusual directive, after earlier ordering them to cooperate.

The Transportation Department, the Drug Enforcement Administration and independent agencies like the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission have told employees to answer Musk's message.

"This mess will get sorted out this week," Musk wrote. He said separately that staffers who continue to work remotely would be placed on leave starting this week.

The confusion echoed the broader chaos surrounding Trump's return to power.

Since taking office on Jan. 20, Trump has frozen billions of dollars in foreign assistance and effectively dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development, stranding medicine and food in warehouses.

DOWNSIZING, REHIRING

He has ordered employees of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to cease working, though they also received Musk's email asking to outline their work activities over the past week. The Trump administration has also offered buyouts to another 75,000 workers.

In some cases, the government has scrambled to re-hire workers who perform critical functions like nuclear weapons oversight and bird flu response. The downsizing also prompted a wave of lawsuits by labor groups and Democratic-led states.

Charles Farinella, a fired IRS agent in New York, said he was trying to figure out whether he should cancel an upcoming dentist appointment because he has not been told whether he still has coverage through his job.

"I don't know what I'm going to do at this point in time. I might have to look to sell my house, because I don't have a severance or anything," he said. "I feel pretty much devastated."

Musk's job-slashing effort has rippled into the wider U.S. economy as well, forcing companies that do business with the government to lay off their own workers and defer payments to vendors.

One company that works with USAID, Chemonics, said in a court filing last week that it had furloughed 750 employees, 63% of its workforce.

JUDGE BLOCKS ACCESS TO RECORDS

Musk's team has also sought to access sensitive payment and personnel records, raising privacy and security concerns. A federal judge on Monday blocked them from accessing records maintained by the Education Department and the Office of Personnel Management, the government's HR agency.

Musk has reveled in the upheaval, even wielding a chainsaw at a conservative political conference last week.

The chief of Tesla and social media platform X has said he aims to cut $1 trillion from the government's $6.7 trillion budget.

Trump has promised to exempt popular health and retirement benefits, which puts nearly half of the budget effectively off limits, but Musk said he would examine those programs for fraudulent payments.

"We are increasingly optimistic that, as the immense waste & fraud are eliminated from Social Security & Medical that there is potential to increase actual dollars received by citizens & better healthcare!" he wrote on X on Sunday.

The Government Accountability Office, a watchdog agency, estimates the total of fraud and improper payments could be as high as $521 billion annually, equal to 8% of spending last year.