In sign of division, some US agencies tell workers to ignore Musk ultimatum

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By Andy Sullivan and Alexandra Alper

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Elon Musk’s order for U.S. government workers to justify their jobs opened divisions in President Donald Trump’s administration, with some agencies telling workers to respond to the chainsaw-wielding billionaire by a Monday night deadline and others telling workers to ignore him.

Musk’s directive to the nation’s 2.3 million civil-service workers to provide a five-point summary of their work by 11:59 p.m. Eastern time (0459 GMT) raised questions about how much authority the world’s richest person can wield in Trump’s government as he leads an effort to slash the federal payroll.

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The Saturday message took some administration officials by surprise, according to two sources familiar with the situation.

Trump, however, stood by Musk. “I thought it was great,” he told reporters at the White House. “There was a lot of genius in sending it. We’re trying to find out if people were working.”

The countermanding of Musk’s order by some agency leaders was the first sign of internal resistance to his blunt-force approach to downsizing the federal government.

But senior officials of the Defense, State, Justice and Homeland Security departments, the FBI and several other agencies told workers not to respond outside their established chain of command.

The Department of Health and Human Services and the Federal Emergency Management Agency initially told workers to cooperate, then told them to stand down.

The Transportation Department, the Treasury Department and independent agencies like the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission have told employees to answer Musk’s message.

Musk has reveled in the upheaval, even wielding a chainsaw at a conservative political conference last week.

His email was also sent to political appointees at the White House who presumably would not be viewed with suspicion by the president, according to two sources.

It also was sent to federal judges and other employees of the court system, who make up a separate branch of government and do not answer to the administration.

Musk’s downsizing effort has laid off more than 20,000 workers so far. He warned that those who do not comply with his order could likewise lose their jobs.

“This mess will get sorted out this week,” Musk wrote. He said separately that staffers who continue to work remotely would be placed on leave starting this week.

DOWNSIZING, REHIRING

The confusion echoed the broader turmoil surrounding Trump’s return to power.

Since taking office on Jan. 20, Trump has frozen billions of dollars in foreign assistance and effectively dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development, stranding medicine and food in warehouses.

He has ordered employees of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to cease working, though they also received Musk’s email asking to outline their work activities over the past week. The Trump administration has separately offered buyouts to 75,000 workers.

In some cases, the government has scrambled to rehire workers who perform critical functions like nuclear weapons oversight and bird flu response. The downsizing also prompted a wave of lawsuits.

On Monday, a group of labor unions that have asked a federal judge to stop the mass firings updated their lawsuit to request that Musk’s email be ruled illegal.

Charles Farinella, a fired IRS agent in New York, said he was trying to figure out whether he should cancel an upcoming dentist appointment because he had not been told whether he still had coverage through his job.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do at this point in time. I might have to look to sell my house, because I don’t have a severance or anything,” he said. “I feel pretty much devastated.”

Musk’s job-slashing effort has rippled into the wider U.S. economy as well, forcing companies that do business with the government to lay off their own workers and defer payments to vendors.

One company that works with USAID, Chemonics International, said in a court filing last week that it had furloughed 750 employees, 63% of its workforce.

JUDGE BLOCKS ACCESS TO RECORDS

Musk’s team has sought to access sensitive payment and personnel records, raising privacy and security concerns. A federal judge on Monday blocked the team from accessing records maintained by the Education Department and the Office of Personnel Management, the government’s human resources agency.

The chief of Tesla and social media platform X, Musk has said he aims to cut $1 trillion from the government’s $6.7 trillion budget.

Trump has promised to exempt popular health and retirement benefits, which puts nearly half of the budget effectively off limits, but Musk said he would examine those programs for fraudulent payments.

(Reporting by Andy Sullivan and Alexandra Alper and Jonathan Stempel; Additional reporting by Andrea Shalal, Doina Chiacu, Nathan Layne, Sarah N. Lynch, Jonathan Landay, Nate Raymond, David Shepardson, Valerie Volcovici and Susan Heavey; Editing by Andrew Heavens, Nick Zieminski and Howard Goller)

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