Employees of the US federal government received letters from the Trump administration on Saturday warning them to provide a detailed account of their work successes from the previous week by Monday night or face termination.
San Francisco, US: On Saturday (local time), Elon Musk made fun of Parag Agrawal, the previous CEO of X, who was fired in 2022 after the tech tycoon took over the company. This occurred as Musk, who was appointed by US President Donald Trump to lead the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), threatened to fire federal workers if they didn’t defend their work over the previous week.
In response to a post on X that stated: “Elon Musk asked Parag Agrawal what he accomplished last week about three years ago.
“Now that he’s asking the same question to all federal employees,” the Tesla CEO added, “Parag accomplished nothing. Parag was let go.
Fallout between Elon Musk and Parag Agrawal :
Since Musk’s directive to government employees, internet users have begun sharing screenshots and memes of a previous exchange between Agrawal and the Tesla CEO prior to his 2022 acquisition of the microblogging site.
Agrawal wrote in his post: “You can tweet. Is Twitter going extinct? or anything else pertaining to Twitter—but it’s my duty to inform you that, under the present situation, it’s not assisting me in improving Twitter. The next time we talk, I want to give you an overview of the extent of internal distraction and how it impairs our productivity. I’d like the company to reach a point where we are more resilient and don’t get sidetracked, but we aren’t there yet. I hope the AMA will help people get to know you, understand why you believe in Twitter, and trust you.
“What did you get done this week?” Musk had responded.
Musk later fired Agrawal from X as a result of the public exchange, which was perceived as a significant rupture between the two.
DOGE’s Federal Employee Notice :
Employees of the US federal government received letters from the Trump administration on Saturday warning them to provide a detailed account of their work successes from the previous week by Monday night or face termination.
Shortly after Musk stated on the social media platform X that failure to reply to the email request would be interpreted as a resignation, the emails were sent. “All federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week,” Musk said on X.
“Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.”
Musk’s remark came hours after President Donald Trump said on his own social media platform, Truth Social, that DOGE should step up its efforts to restructure and reduce the government workforce, which currently numbers 2.3 million.
As of Saturday night, emails with the subject line “What did you do last week?” were being sent to staff members of various government agencies, such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The subject line is reminiscent to Musk’s three-year-old ruse against Agrawal. According to reports, the email requests that staff members respond with a five-point summary of “what you accomplished at work last week,” copying their supervisors.
It was sent from the Office of Personnel Management’s human resources address and gives staff members till Monday at 11:59 p.m. EST to reply.
What would happen to personnel who are unable to disclose secret work, and what legal grounds Musk has to fire federal employees who do not comply with his request, are also unknown.
According to persons acquainted with the situation, OPM sent the email to some federal judiciary personnel on Saturday, despite the fact that the court system is not a part of the executive branch, as reported by news agency Reuters.
The email was also alleged to have been received by Consumer Financial Protection Bureau employees. But since early this month, the majority of agency employees have been told not to do any work, which has led to a dilemma. Additionally, a temporary court injunction prohibits the agency from carrying out mass terminations until the conclusion of legal processes.