A number of Trump-appointed company leaders urged their staffs to not adjust to Elon Musk’s order to summarize their accomplishments for the previous week or be faraway from their positions, at the same time as Mr. Musk doubled down on his demand over the weekend.
Their directions in impact countermanded the order of Mr. Musk, difficult the broad authority President Trump has given to the world’s richest man to make drastic modifications to the federal paperwork. The standoff serves as one of many first vital checks of how far Mr. Musk’s energy will prolong.
Because the directive ricocheted throughout the federal authorities, officers at some businesses, together with the Protection Division, the F.B.I., the State Division and the workplace coordinating America’s intelligence businesses, bluntly advised their staff to not reply.
The general public pushback displays a rising unease — and, in some circumstances, alarm — behind the scenes throughout the administration in regards to the notion of Mr. Musk’s unchecked energy.
The unease runs from decrease workers to some cupboard secretaries, who’ve bored with having to justify particular intricacies of company coverage and having to scramble to handle unexpected controversies that Mr. Musk has ignited.
These officers are conscious that he has affect over the president privately, they usually worry him utilizing X, the social media web site he owns, to single out individuals he views as obstructing him, in accordance with one senior administration official.
One one who was quiet in regards to the controversy all through a lot of the weekend was Mr. Trump; after posting on social media on Saturday morning that he wished Mr. Musk to be extra “aggressive,” after which bragging about the purge of federal workers in a speech hours later, the president had remained mute on the topic by way of Sunday afternoon.
By then, a few of the pushback towards Mr. Musk from administration officers — coming largely from the nationwide safety equipment and legislation enforcement businesses — had turn into public and specific.
“The Division of Protection is liable for reviewing the efficiency of its personnel and it’ll conduct any overview in accordance with its personal procedures,” Darin S. Selnick, the performing Pentagon official in command of personnel, stated in an announcement, instructing Pentagon staff to “for now, please pause any response.”
Tulsi Gabbard, the director of the workplace of nationwide intelligence, ordered all intelligence group officers to not reply, in a message to intelligence officers reviewed by The New York Instances.
“Given the inherently delicate and categorised nature of our work, I.C. staff mustn’t reply to the OPM e mail,” Ms. Gabbard wrote.
Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, wrote in an e mail to staff that “the F.B.I., by way of the workplace of the director, is in command of all our overview processes,” telling employees that they need to “for now, please pause any responses.”
On the Justice Division and F.B.I., the threatening indicators from Mr. Musk have been met with a mixture of anger and amazement that anybody would concern such a blanket demand with out consideration for delicate areas comparable to legal investigations, authorized confidentiality or grand jury materials.
Some legislation enforcement supervisors shortly advised staff to attend for extra steerage from managers on Monday earlier than responding to the demand, in accordance with present and former officers.
Different departments appeared to provide conflicting steerage. The Division of Well being and Human Providers advised its staff on Sunday morning to comply with the directive. An hour later, an e mail from the Nationwide Institutes of Well being, a subordinate company, advised staff to “maintain on responding” till “we obtain additional steerage.” That e mail was signed by Matthew J. Memoli, the company’s Trump-appointed acting director.
On Saturday, Mr. Musk posted a requirement for presidency staff to summarize their accomplishments for the week, warning that failure to take action could be taken as a resignation. Quickly after, the Workplace of Personnel Administration, which manages the federal work power, despatched an e mail asking civil servants for a listing of accomplishments, nevertheless it didn’t embrace the specter of removing for not complying.
Unions representing federal employees steered that Mr. Musk’s order was not legitimate. They suggested their members to comply with steerage from their supervisors on how, and whether or not, to answer the e-mail.
In a scathing letter on Sunday, Everett B. Kelley, the president of the American Federation of Authorities Staff — the biggest federal worker union — advised the performing director of the Workplace of Personnel Administration that the e-mail despatched to federal staff was “plainly illegal” and “inconsiderate.”
Mr. Kelley demanded that the order be retracted, and famous, “By permitting the unelected and unhinged Elon Musk to dictate O.P.M.’s actions, you’ve gotten demonstrated an absence of regard for the integrity of federal staff and their essential work.”
A number of intelligence businesses, together with the Nationwide Safety Company, had warned staff that responding could risk inadvertently disclosing classified work.
Though Mr. Musk’s authentic e mail advised staff to not embrace categorised materials, present and former intelligence officers stated that if an adversary gained entry to hundreds of unclassified accounts of intelligence officers’ work that it might be capable of piece collectively delicate particulars or study tasks that have been supposed to stay secret.
Consultant Mike Lawler, a New York Republican whose seat could also be among the most fiercely contested in 2026, raised doubt in regards to the order at the same time as he gave broader assist to Mr. Musk’s cost-cutting effort.
“I don’t understand how that’s essentially possible,” Mr. Lawler stated of the ultimatum. “Clearly, plenty of federal staff are below union contract.”
However, he continued, “There’s no query, because the Division of Authorities Effectivity strikes forward, what they’re looking for to do is be sure that each company and division is successfully and effectively doing their job.”
It’s unclear what authorized foundation Mr. Musk must justify mass firings based mostly on responses to the e-mail, and the White Home and the Workplace of Personnel Administration didn’t instantly reply questions on the specter of removing.
However Mr. Musk — who made similar unconventional demands throughout his takeover of Twitter, now known as X — insisted on Sunday morning that the order amounted to “a really primary pulse verify.”
In a sequence of posts, Mr. Musk additionally promoted baseless claims of wage fraud — {that a} vital variety of “non-existent” or useless individuals have been employed within the federal work power, and that criminals have been utilizing the faux staff to gather authorities paychecks.
“They’re masking immense fraud,” Mr. Musk stated in response to a submit by a supporter that stated that “the left is flipping out a couple of easy e mail.” In one other submit, Mr. Musk posted a meme that imagined some federal staff to be terrorized by the order.
His claims echo a similar one that tens of hundreds of thousands of useless individuals could also be receiving fraudulent Social Safety funds. A recent report by the Social Safety Administration’s inspector common — a watchdog that investigates this system for waste, fraud and abuse — discovered that “nearly none” of the individuals within the company’s database who had seemingly died have been receiving funds.
Reporting was contributed by Julian E. Barnes, Devlin Barrett, Rebecca Davis O’Brien, Ken Bensinger, Kate Conger, Sheryl Homosexual Stolberg, Adam Goldman, Minho Kim, Lisa Friedman and Margot Sanger-Katz.
