Confusion between federal workers as the deadline to list achievements

Washington – Confusion and chaos unfold as hundreds of thousands of federal employees start working on Monday Compared to a deadline From the head of President Donald Trump, Elon Musk, to explain his recent achievements or risk losing his job.

Musk’s unusual request faced Resistance of several US key agencies Leaded by the president’s loyalists – including the FBI, the State Department, the Internal Security and the Pentagon – who trained their employees on the weekend not to comply. MPs on both sides said that Musk’s mandate can be illegal, while the unions threaten to sue.

Trump on the weekend demanded that Musk be more aggressive in his cost reduction crusade through the so-called government efficiency department, or Doge, and posted a meme on social networks that mock federal employees who “cry about Trump. and Elon ”.

Musk’s team sent an E -mail to hundreds of thousands of federal employees on Saturday, offering about 48 hours to report five specific things they did last week. In a separate message on X, Musk said that any employee who failed to respond to the deadline – set on E -email as at 11:59 pm est – will lose his job.

The mass confusion followed on the eve of the term, because some agencies resisted the order, others encouraged the workers to comply, and others offered contradictory guidelines.

A message on Sunday morning from the Human Health and Services Department, led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., trained about 80,000 employees to comply. This was shortly after the interim general counselor, Sean Keveney, instructed some not to. And until Sunday night, the management of the Agency issued new instructions that employees should “interrupt the activities” related to the request until no on Monday.

“I will be honest with you. After putting over 70 hours of work last week, advancing the administration’s priorities, I was personally insulted to receive the E -mail below, ”Keveney said in an E -mail viewed by Associated Press that recognized a broad meaning. of “uncertainty and stress” within the agency.

Keveney has set security issues and emphasized some of the works performed by the employees of the Agency can be protected by the Lawyer-Client privilege: “I have not received any assurances that there are adequate protection to protect the answers to this e-mail.”

Democrats and even some Republicans, including Senator John Curtis, R-Eah, were critics for Musk’s ultimatum.

“If I could say one thing to Elon Musk, it is that, please put a dose of compassion in this regard,” said Curtis, whose state has 33,000 federal employees, said “Face The Nation” from CBS . “They are true people. These are real lives. These are mortgage loans. … It’s a fake narrative to say we have to cut and you have to be cruel to do it as well. “

Newly confirmed FBI Director Kash PatelAn ally Trump has trained employees to ignore Musk’s request at least for now.

“FBI, through the director’s office, is responsible for all our review processes and will carry out reviews in accordance with the FBI procedures,” Patel wrote in an E -mail confirmed by AP. “When and if additional information is needed, we will coordinate the answers. For now, please pause any answer. “

Ed MartinThe US interim lawyer for Colombia district, sent his staff a message on Sunday that could have caused more confusion.

“Allow me to clarify: we will respect this request OPM, whether you answer or deciding not to answer,” Martin wrote in the Em mail, referring to the personnel management office.

“Please make an effort of good faith to answer and list your activities (or not, as you prefer) and, as I mentioned, I will have the back on any confusion,” Martin continued. “We can do this.”

The officials from the state departments, defense and internal security were more consistent.

Tibor Nagy, an undersecretary of state for leadership, told the employees in one E -mail that the management of the department will respond on behalf of the workers. “No employee is obliged to report his activities outside the Department’s command chain,” Nagy wrote in an E -mail.

The leadership of the Pentagon asked the employees to “interrupt” any response to Musk’s team, according to an Email from Jules Hurst, the deputy undersecretary of defense for staff and training.

Meanwhile, the interior security department told employees that “no reporting action is required from you.

Thousands of government employees have already been forced from the federal workforce – either by being fired or by an offer of “postponed resignation” – in the first month of Trump’s second term. So far, there is no official figure for redundancies or redundancies The water has lifted Hundreds of thousands of workers who are affected. Many work outside Washington.

On Sunday, Musk called his last request “a very basic pulse check”.

“The reason this matters is the fact that a significant number of people who are supposed to work for the government do so few works that they do not check their E -mail!” Musk wrote on X. “In some cases, we believe that non -existent people or identities of dead people are used to collect salaries. In other words, there is a direct fraud. “

He did not provide any proof of such fraud. Separately, Musk and Trump have falsely claimed In recent days, tens of millions of people of over 100 years are receiving social security payments.

Meanwhile, thousands of other employees are preparing to leave the federal workforce next week including Civil workers of sample at the pentagon and all except a fraction of American Agency for International Development Employees through cuts or departures.

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Peoples reported from New York. Writers Associated Press Byron Tau, Ellen Knickmeyer, Matthew Perrone and COP country in Washington and Valerie Gonzalez from McALlen, Texas, contributed to this report.