Elon Musk's DOGE sends 2nd 'what did you do last week' e-mail to federal workers

The Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has sent a second "what did you do last week" e-mail to US federal workers, asking them to list their weekly accomplishments by midnight on Monday, despite widespread criticism over its decision to fire hundreds of thousands of government employees as part of a broader budget overhaul.

The new e-mails, with the subject line, "What did you do last week? Part II" were sent out on Saturday night, less than a week after the first “what did you do last week?” mail on February 23, prompting hundreds of thousands of workers to list five tasks that they had completed over the past week.

Several government agencies, including the Departments of Defence, Homeland Security, the US Office of Personnel Management, NASA and the FBI, among others, had asked employees to ignore DOGE's directive at the time.

However, staffers at the Departments of Treasury and Transportation, as well as independent agencies like the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission were asked to respond.

Under the latest work directive, which came from “hr@opm.gov”, the same OPM address that sent the first version, federal employees have until 11.59 pm (local time) on Monday to list five bullet points in an e-mail, describing their accomplishments in the past week.

“Please reply to this email with approx. 5 bullets describing what you accomplished last week and cc your manager,” the message read.

The second e-mail, however, added a new requirement for agencies that handle classified information, exempting their workers from filling in additional paperwork.

“If all of your activities are classified or sensitive, please write, ‘All of my activities are sensitive'," it said.

Employees at a third agency received the email from an internal department address.

Although it remains unclear which government departments and agencies would respond to the second e-mail, Musk said in a post on X on Saturday, "All federal government departments are cooperating with DOGE. For State, DoD and a few others, the supervisors are gathering the weekly accomplishments on behalf of individual contributors."

Last week, DOGE instructed agencies across the government to submit plans by March 13 for a “significant reduction” in staffing across the federal workforce.

DOGE CONTINUES LAYOFFS DESPITE CRITICISM

Already, about 100,000 workers have taken buyouts or been fired after DOGE was dispatched by Trump to gut federal staffing and spending. There are about 2.3 million federal employees in all.

The layoffs have occurred in such a chaotic manner that some agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration have been forced to recall key personnel in order to ensure public safety.

On Friday, the Social Security Administration, which sends out benefit checks to tens of millions of Americans, said it would cut 7,000 people from its workforce and shutter several regional offices.

The Trump administration has also pulled the plug on a team of tech-savvy civil servants that helped build the Internal Revenue Service's free tax filing service and revamped websites across government.

(With AP, Reuters inputs)