Monday deadline: Elon Musk's ‘report or resign’ order sparks US federal workers uproar

Elon Musk, head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) under President Donald Trump, has mandated that all federal employees submit a report detailing their accomplishments from the previous week by Monday, February 24, 2025. Failure to comply will be interpreted as a resignation.

"All federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week," Musk posted on X. "Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation."

Elon Musk has issued a directive requiring U.S. federal employees to report their work from the previous week by Monday. Emails with the subject line, "What did you do last week?" have been sent to employees across various agencies, including the Securities and Exchange Commission, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The directive states that a failure to respond to the email will be considered a resignation. This order has sparked significant controversy and an "uproar" among federal employees and unions, with questions about the mandate's legal authority.

Musk's post came just hours after President Donald Trump posted on his own social media network, Truth Social, that DOGE should get more aggressive in its attempts to downsize and reshape the federal workforce.

Meanwhile, on Saturday evening, Reuters reported that the Trump administration emailed US federal government employees, telling them to detail their work accomplishments from the previous week by Monday night or risk losing their jobs.

Meanwhile, supervisors at the Justice Department advise employees to delay responding to a federal government-wide directive requiring staff to outline their recent job accomplishments—an order issued by Elon Musk’s government efficiency team. Bloomberg reported that DOJ employees have expressed concerns that complying with the directive could lead to potential ethics violations.

According to sources familiar with the situation, at least five DOJ office leaders promptly instructed their teams not to submit any details about their work until they received more guidance.

-With inputs from Reuters, Bloomberg