List accomplishments or resign, Musk tells US federal workers

US Government Workers Face Ultimatum: Prove Accomplishments or Resign

On Saturday afternoon, U.S. government employees received an email demanding a summary of their accomplishments from the past week—or risk being considered as having resigned. The move is the latest step in the Trump administration’s campaign to reduce the size of the federal workforce.

The email followed a post on X (formerly Twitter) by Elon Musk, a close confidant of former President Donald Trump. As head of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), Musk wrote, "Employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week. Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation."

The email, with the subject line "What did you do last week?" was sent from a generic "HR" address. It instructed employees to outline their weekly achievements in five bullet points—excluding classified information—by midnight on Monday, with their managers copied on the email.

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the federal government's human resources agency, confirmed the email's authenticity, stating: "As part of the Trump administration’s commitment to an efficient and accountable federal workforce, OPM is asking employees to provide a brief summary of their work. Agencies will determine any next steps."

The American Federation of Government Employees, the largest union for federal workers, condemned the email as "cruel and disrespectful," pledging to fight any "unlawful terminations."

"Once again, Elon Musk and the Trump Administration have shown their utter disdain for federal employees and the critical services they provide to the American people," said Everett Kelley, the union’s president.

Meanwhile, FBI Director Kash Patel advised agency staff to "pause any responses" to the memo, clarifying that the FBI would handle internal reviews according to its own procedures.

The email distribution occurred shortly after Trump addressed the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), where he criticized federal workers' productivity, particularly those working remotely.

"We’re removing all unnecessary, incompetent, and corrupt bureaucrats from the federal workforce," Trump told the CPAC crowd. "We want a smaller, more efficient government. We want to keep the best people, and we’re not going to keep the worst people."

Since Musk took on a leading role in the Doge initiative, thousands of employees from agencies like the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the Pentagon, and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) have reportedly been dismissed.

The approach echoes Musk’s management style at Twitter (now X) following his 2022 acquisition of the platform, where he imposed strict productivity measures and gave employees ultimatums to embrace an "extremely hardcore" work ethic or resign.

Trump has frequently praised Musk’s actions, recently posting on Truth Social that Musk is doing a "great job" shrinking the federal government and encouraging him to be "more aggressive" in the effort.