Elon Musk says federal employees must email ‘what they got done last week,' or be let go
Protesters rally against Elon Musk outside Rockville Tesla dealership
Dozens protested against the Trump administration Saturday outside the Rockville Tesla dealership. FOX 5's Shomari Stone has the story.
WASHINGTON - Elon Musk suggested Saturday that all federal employees will be required to report what "they got done" last week at work, and that a failure to respond would result in a loss of job.
Here’s what to know:
Elon Musk tweet
What they're saying:
Elon Musk tweeted Saturday all federal employees will be asked to report "what they got done last week," and that failure to reply would be considered a resignation.
"All federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week," his tweet reads.
"Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation," it continued.
On Sunday, the Tesla founder said that DOGE had already received, "A large number of good responses."
"These are the people who should be considered for promotion," he posted on X.
Musk also shared a brief explanation as to why he made the initial request.
"The reason this matters is that a significant number of people who are supposed to be working for the government are doing so little work that they are not checking their email at all! In some cases, we believe non-existent people or the identities of dead people are being used to collect paychecks. In other words, there is outright fraud," he posted.
Trump firing federal employees
What we know:
Layoffs and firings have affected many federal departments in recent weeks.
Since Donald Trump took office in January, one of his top priorities is cutting and reorganizing spending within the federal government.
The president has tapped billionaire businessman Elon Musk to lead the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which has been tasked with finding and prioritizing what to cut. Thousands of federal government employees have been laid off or fired in the process.
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What we don't know:
Musk didn’t elaborate exactly how or what federal employees were expected to report. It’s also not clear the timeline from when they’d receive the email request and be expected to respond.
By the numbers:
The federal government consists of about 2.4 million civilians. 20% of them live in the Washington, D.C. region.
There is no official figure available for the total firings or layoffs.
The Source: Information in this article was taken from a Feb. 22, 2025, tweet made by Elon Musk. Background information on DOGE and its activities was taken from The Associated Press and previous FOX Television Station reportings.