Elon Musk Orders Federal Employees to Justify Work via Email; President Trump Agrees
Musk states federal workers must report weekly accomplishments through email or face termination; critics argue the policy is coercive and legally questionable.
Elon Musk wants federal employees to prove they’re working.
On Saturday, Musk helped draft an email requiring millions of federal workers to submit a weekly summary of their accomplishments or risk termination. The email, titled “What did you do last week?”, instructed recipients to provide “five bullets of what you accomplished” by Monday at 11:59 p.m. (Wall Street Journal).
President Trump endorsed the move, stating, “If you don’t answer, like you’re sort of semi-fired.” He called the policy “great” and said it would help eliminate employees drawing salaries without real work (Politico).
Critics Question Legality of the Move
Michael Fallings, a federal employment attorney, told Politico that Musk’s proposed actions would violate labor laws. He questioned the legality of the directive and suggested Musk may not yet have a clear plan for enforcing it. “I don’t believe it would be legal, and I don’t think he really understands right now how he will even do what he’s threatened to do,” Fallings said. (Politico)
I loved it. Just the type of move any business owner or consultant would use to get attention. I’ve owned businesses for forty years and one of my favorite ways to open a conversation with a problem employee is to ask, “How long have you been working here, not counting today?”.
But the best part was Elon’s disclosure over the weekend of his real purpose. The real goal of that exercise was to see who didn’t answer, whether directly or indirectly (say by protesting), in order to narrow the field in finding phantom employees. The media (and the bureaucracy) were trolled, and played their part perfectly.
I have an additional take on this: The email while horrific, illegal and heartless, serves another purpose.
They have no idea what most of the people actually do. They can’t be bothered to actually examine thr workflows so this is how they find out what the actual jobs are and get some smidgeon of how any of these agencies function.