WASHINGTON — Federal employees encountered renewed ambiguity regarding their futures on Tuesday after Elon Musk presented them with “another opportunity” to explain their roles or face dismissal, countering advice from certain Trump administration officials that the request was voluntary.
This perplexing exchange has reverberated throughout the federal framework, with some agencies directing employees to comply while others refrained from doing so. It has turned into a measure of how much authority Mr. Musk holds over the operations of the government as he embarks on an unprecedented austerity initiative supported by President Donald Trump.
On Tuesday, twenty-one employees resigned from what has been termed the Department of Government Efficiency in protest, stating they refused to support the retrenchment initiative.
“We will not employ our expertise as technologists to undermine essential government systems, endanger the sensitive data of Americans, or dismantle vital public services,” the employees declared in an online resignation letter.
DOGE did not reply to a request for commentary regarding the resignations.
The resignors, consisting of data scientists, product managers, and the IT division head, were previously part of an office known as the United States Digital Service before Mr. Musk took control and renamed it DOGE after a favored cryptocurrency.
The resignations added to the intrigue surrounding Mr. Musk’s email ultimatum, which was dispatched to employees throughout the government requesting them to summarize their achievements from the previous week by Monday. In a post on X, the social media platform owned by Mr. Musk, he claimed that failure to respond would amount to resignation.
As the Monday deadline loomed, the Office of Personnel Management, the government’s human resources branch, advised employees they could disregard the email.
Mr. Musk, the billionaire chief of electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla and rocket firm SpaceX, remained unfazed.
“Subject to presidential discretion, they will receive another opportunity. A second failure to respond will lead to termination,” he noted on X late on Monday without establishing a new deadline.
Before the revised OPM guidance, Mr. Trump indicated that employees who failed to respond would be “sort of semi-fired,” adding to the confusion.
When asked on Tuesday if the renewed threat would be enforced against non-complying employees, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt stated that Trump would defer to the advice of cabinet secretaries for their respective teams.
‘WORKING AS ONE TEAM’
The dizzying developments revealed new divisions within Trump’s administration regarding Mr. Musk’s austere approach. Even some Trump loyalists, such as Kash Patel, the newly appointed FBI chief, advised employees to withhold their replies.
Leavitt dismissed any notion of fractures within the administration, asserting that everyone was “working as one team.”
Mr. Musk is scheduled to attend Mr. Trump’s cabinet meeting on Wednesday, she mentioned.
Employees at multiple agencies reported receiving conflicting instructions from leadership, leaving them uncertain about how to proceed.
The Department of Health and Human Services recommended that if employees chose to respond, they should avoid discussing specific medications or contracts, according to an email seen by Reuters.
“Assume that what you write will be viewed by malign foreign entities and tailor your response accordingly,” the email advised.
The acting director of OPM itself sent an email to the agency’s personnel stating that responding was voluntary “but strongly encouraged.”
The Trump administration is set to significantly reduce a unit within OPM responsible for monitoring all federal government human resource operations including hiring, promotions, retirements, and separations, as per two individuals familiar with the matter. The unit will shrink from 64 employees to just under a dozen, these individuals stated.
OPM did not reply to a request for comment.
Mr. Musk’s retrenchment plan has resulted in the layoff of over 20,000 workers, with an additional 75,000 accepting buyouts, and the effort continued to escalate on Tuesday.
There are approximately 2.3 million civilian federal employees.
The majority of dismissed employees were in their roles for less than a year, making them simpler to let go under civil service regulations. However, OPM has initiated the termination of long-term employees within its own agency in what sources revealed to Reuters is aimed to serve as a prototype for a subsequent round of mass layoffs throughout the government.
Consequently, IRS executives have been instructed to prepare for another round of job eliminations beyond the nearly 12,000 IRS employees already targeted for dismissal, according to two individuals familiar with the situation, referring to the approximately 7,000 probationary employees set to be terminated and 5,000 employees taking a buyout. So far, the reductions have exceeded more than 10% of the IRS workforce.
Gavin Kliger, the 25-year-old software engineer assigned by Mr. Musk to examine IRS operations, has conveyed to executives his belief that the agency can achieve its mission with significantly fewer personnel, according to sources.
The Interior Department received a directive from OPM on Tuesday stating that bureaus like the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Bureau of Indian Affairs should develop plans for workforce reductions ranging from 10% to 40%, an Interior source informed Reuters. – Reuters