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Elon Musk has poured fuel on to the fire raging across the US government over his ultimatum that federal workers document what they do at their jobs or face dismissal – by attacking a Pentagon official who had criticized the scheme as “the silliest thing I’ve seen in 40 years”.
The billionaire businessman, who has been authorised by Donald Trump to slash the federal bureaucracy as head of the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge), stoked the flames in a post on his social media platform X late on Sunday night. He slammed the unnamed Department of Defense (DoD) official quoted by CNN, saying that “anyone with the attitude of that Pentagon official needs to look for a new job”.
The official was one of many senior federal figures who, speaking to the press anonymously, decried Musk’s latest ruse to spread fear and chaos across federal agencies. “It is the silliest thing I’ve seen in 40 years and completely usurps the chain of command,” CNN quoted the official as saying.
The official added that responding to Musk’s ultimatum “might be done elsewhere, but in the DoD it’s not done”.
Musk’s ultimatum was sent out on Saturday in a mass email to federal employees from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). It gave all the US government’s more than 2 million workers barely 48 hours to itemize their accomplishments in the past week in five bullet points.
In a separate message, Musk indicated that “failure to respond will be taken as a resignation”.
The order provoked instant chaos across the government, with Trump’s own appointed leadership in federal agencies responding in starkly different ways. Workers in the social security administration and the health and human services department were told to comply with the email – while in other departments employees were instructed to await further orders or to simply ignore Musk’s edict.
The new director of the FBI, Trump loyalist Kash Patel, told agents to “please pause any responses”. Employees with the homeland security department were similarly informed that “no reporting action from you is needed at this time”.
Despite Musk’s retort to the anonymous Pentagon official, all employees at the Department of Defense, who now answer to the former Fox News host and Trump acolyte Pete Hegseth as defense secretary, were also told to pause responding to the OPM missive.
At least 20,000 federal workers have so far been fired by the Trump administration, most of them recent hires on probationary periods who lack employment protections. In addition, the White House claims that more than 75,000 employees have accepted a buyout.
The purge has prompted speculation that Trump is engaging in one of the biggest job cutting rounds in US history, which could have a powerful knock-on effect on the American economy.
