Musk says all US govt staff must justify their work or lose jobs

Elon Musk, the billionaire adviser to Donald Trump, said Saturday that all US federal employees must justify their work or lose their jobs, hours after the president pushed him to be "more aggressive" in slashing government spending.

Musk — the world's richest person and Trump's biggest donor — has led the effort to fire swaths of the government workforce.

"All federal employees will shortly receive an e-mail requesting to understand what they got done last week. Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation," Musk wrote.

According to a copy of the e-mail provided to AFP, federal workers were asked to submit "approx. 5 bullets of what you accomplished last week."

The e-mail came from the US Office of Personnel Management (OPM), with the subject line "What did you do last week?" The deadline to reply was 11:59pm Monday, though the message did not say failure to do so would lead to termination.

The OPM did not immediately reply to AFP's request for comment on Saturday evening.

The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the largest federal employee union, vowed to challenge any unlawful terminations in a statement from national president Everett Kelley.

Kelley slammed Musk and the Trump administration, saying the move showed "their utter disdain for federal employees and the critical services they provide to the American people."

"It is cruel and disrespectful to hundreds of thousands of veterans who are wearing their second uniform in the civil service to be forced to justify their job duties to this out-of-touch, privileged, unelected billionaire who has never performed one single hour of honest public service in his life," he said.

Several federal employees told AFP they were advised by their agencies not to respond to the e-mail and wait for further instruction, a recommendation echoed by the National Treasury Employees Union.

"I have so much work to do, I am not going to neglect actual patient care for this drama," a physician at the Department of Veterans Affairs, who received the e-mail, told AFP.

Musk later appeared to downplay the requirements of the request, writing on X that the bar is "very low" and saying, "An e-mail with some bullet points that make any sense at all is acceptable!"

'More aggressive'

Earlier Saturday, Trump said on his Truth Social platform that Musk was "doing a great job, but I would like to see him get more aggressive."

"Remember, we have a country to save," the Republican leader added.

Trump has put the tech entrepreneur in charge of the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) advisery body, tasking him with slashing public spending and tackling alleged waste and corruption.

In the latest cuts announced Friday, the US Defense Department is to reduce its civilian workforce by at least 5 percent starting next week.