FBI Chiefs have told employees to ignore Elon Musk’s ultimatum as thousands of members of staff could be forced to resign within hours.
FBI director Kash Patel has told his staff members not to respond to an email sent out by Elon Musk, which demands they reply with a list of their accomplishments of the week.
The request was sent to all government employee emails on Saturday evening, shortly after Musk, the head of Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), posted on X that not responding to the request would be viewed as a resignation.
He wrote: "All federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week. Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation."
Patel, who was sworn in as FBI director on Thursday, sent employees an email telling them to ignore the request
REUTERS
The email, titled "What did you do last week?" was sent to employees across several federal agencies, asking staff to reply outlining five bullet points summarising what they had accomplished in the last week and to copy in their managers.
The deadline to reply to the email, sent from a human resources address from the Office of Personnel Management, is 11.59pm EST on Monday.
Patel, who was sworn in as FBI director on Thursday, sent employees an email telling them to ignore the request.
He wrote: “FBI personnel may have received an email from OPM requesting information. The FBI, through the Office of the Director, is in charge of all of our review processes and will conduct reviews in accordance with FBI procedures.”
MORE LIKE THIS:
“When and if further information is required, we will coordinate the responses. For now, please pause any responses,” he added.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard also ordered staff to ignore the email, writing: “Given the inherently sensitive and classified nature of our work, IC employees should not respond to the OPM email.”
The disregarding of Musk’s request suggests potential power struggles between top members of Trump’s team.
On Sunday, Musk claimed the email was necessary to fight alleged fraud within the government.
It is not understood what legal grounds Musk has to sack employees who do not comply with the request
REUTERS
He said: “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.”
Musk did not include evidence to back up his claims.
It is not understood what legal grounds Musk has to sack employees who do not comply with the request, and what would happen to staff who cannot reveal confidential work.
