‘Want To Keep Everyone Who Is Essential’: Musk On ‘What You Did Last Week’ Email To Employees

Last Updated:February 27, 2025, 09:18 IST

Elon Musk said that he follows Commander-in-Chief President Donald Trump's instructions and the latter had given his nod to sending the email to the federal employees.

Elon Musk attends Donald Trump's first Cabinet meeting (AP Image)

Elon Musk elaborated on the reason behind his email to all US federal employees, asking them to justify their work or risk getting fired, and said that President Donald Trump “encouraged" him to send out the email, which was intended to “keep everyone who is essential" and not be unfair.

“Last week, the President encouraged me via Truth Social and via phone call to be more aggressive. The President is Commander-in-Chief, and I do what the President asks. I asked him whether we could send out that e-mail, and the President said yes. Our goal is not to be capricious or unfair. The e-mail could simply be “What I’m working on is classified," and that would be sufficient. This is just common sense. We want to keep everyone who is essential and doing their job well," Musk said during the first Cabinet meeting of the second Trump administration.

Last Saturday, Musk, who is Trump’s advisor and DOGE chief, said that all US federal employees must justify their work or lose their jobs. His remarks came hours after Trump asked him to be “more aggressive" in cutting government spending.

“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," Musk had said.

The federal workers were asked to submit “approx. 5 bullets of what you accomplished last week".

The email was sent from the US Office of Personnel Management (OPM), with the subject line “What did you do last week?" The deadline to reply to the email was 11:59 pm on Monday. However, the email did not mention that failure to respond would get the employee sacked.

Over a million federal employees responded to the email, Politico reported.

Washington D.C., United States of America (USA)

News world ‘Want To Keep Everyone Who Is Essential’: Musk On ‘What You Did Last Week’ Email To Employees