Musk says all federal workers must justify job or risk firing; DOJ heads tell staff not to reply

Gregory Korte and Victoria Cavaliere, Bloomberg News on Feb 22, 2025

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WASHINGTON — Elon Musk, who is heading U.S. President Donald Trump’s overhaul of the government, said all federal employees will receive an email directing them to justify their jobs.

The move prompted Justice Department supervisors who are concerned about ethics violations to direct employees to hold off on replying to the email.

Musk’s warning on Saturday came shortly after Trump said in a social media message that “Elon is doing a great job, but I would like to see him get more aggressive.”

Musk is overseeing Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. He said in a post on his social media platform X that all federal workers will get an email asking “what they got done last week” and that “failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.”

The post didn’t address a myriad of legal and pragmatic complexities, and seemed to indicate the government could simply stop paying any number of federal workers, from the postal service to penitentiaries, if an email justification of their jobs wasn’t made.

The American Federation of Government Employees, which describes itself as representing more than 800,000 workers, didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment on the post.

Meanwhile, at the Justice Department Saturday, at least five office leaders quickly responded to the HR email by telling their staff not to detail their work until they receive further clarity, said five people familiar with the situation.

Among them, two U.S. attorneys offices messaged workers that the support office for all 93 U.S. attorneys was trying to gather guidance from DOJ leadership about how they can comply or whether the email was even legitimate, said two individuals.

Within an hour after the government’s HR office gave all federal employees Saturday two days to provide five bullets of what they accomplished last week, DOJ managers rushed to blast out words of assurance to their workforce, said the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity to share internal office matters.

DOJ lawyers are concerned that disclosing nonpublic investigation details, including evidence before a grand jury, would amount to attorney misconduct, the sources said.

Trump created DOGE through a Jan. 20 executive order that reorganized an existing White House office, the US Digital Service, and officially tasked the team with modernizing technology across government. In early February he expanded its role to include oversight of spending and personnel cuts to transform the federal workforce, reduce the size of the government and limit hiring to essential positions.

Musk has pledged that DOGE’s cost-cutting enterprise would provide “maximum transparency” and that “all of our actions are fully public.” The department says it has saved some $55 billion in federal spending so far, but this week its website accounted only for $16.6 billion of that.

There was at least one notable exception to the orders to hold off on replying, as the DOJ did. Ed Martin, the staunch Trump loyalist leading the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, gave his staff the go-ahead.

“DOGE and Elon are doing great work! History. We are happy to be participate,” Martin told his office, according to an email he posted on X. “Please respond to the HR email carefully with regard to confidentiality and our duties. Be general if you need to. If anyone gives you problems, I’ve got your back. You’re good.”

The Saturday afternoon message from the Office of Personnel Management advised government workers not to send “classified information, links, or attachments.”

So far DOGE has fired numerous workers and sought to gain access to internal systems across several government agencies, sparking lawsuits over Trump’s legal and constitutional limits as president.

A federal judge this week denied a request from Democratic state attorneys general to temporarily block DOGE’s work. The Democrats contend that Musk is exercising power to reshape the US government that is supposed to be reserved for high-level, Senate-confirmed officials.

The department has also reversed some of its firings and cuts, including to a health program for 9/11 first responders and survivors. And the Energy Department decided to bring back nuclear energy specialists after abruptly eliminating their jobs.

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(With assistance from Ben Penn.)