President Donald Trump warned that federal employees who don’t follow new guidance requiring them to report personal productivity could lose their jobs.
The effort stems from an email that SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk spearheaded that asked federal workers to send an email Monday detailing a summary of what tasks they accomplished the previous week. Musk is heading up the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) that aims to reduce government waste and fraud.
“I thought it was great,” Trump told reporters of the initiative Monday at the White House, “because we have people who don’t show up to work and nobody even knows if they work for the government. So by asking the question, ‘Tell us what you did this week,’ what [Musk is] doing is saying, ‘Are you actually working?’ If you don’t answer, you’re sort of semi-fired, or you’re fired, because a lot of people are not answering because they don’t even exist.”
“DoD personnel may have received an email from OPM requesting information,” wrote Darin Selnick, who is performing the duties of the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness. “The Department of Defense is responsible for reviewing the performance of its personnel and it will conduct any review in accordance with its own procedures.
“When and if required, the Department will coordinate responses to the email you have received from OPM,” he wrote. “For now, please pause any response to the OPM email titled, ‘What did you do last week.'”
FBI Director Kash Patel issued a similar directive to his staff and said the agency “will conduct reviews in accordance with FBI procedures,” according to the Associated Press.
DOGE, which is tasked with weeding out government overspending, is facing multiple lawsuits from government employees seeking to challenge Musk’s efforts to audit various federal agencies.
Fox News’ Greg Wehner, Jennifer Griffin and Stephen Sorace contributed to this report.
Diana Stancy is a politics reporter with Fox News Digital covering the White House.
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