WASHINGTON--Federal workers faced fresh uncertainty about their futures on Tuesday after Elon Musk gave them "another chance" to respond to his ultimatum that they justify their jobs or risk termination, contradicting guidance from some Trump administration officials that the request was voluntary.
The confusing back-and-forth has rippled through the federal bureaucracy, with some agencies instructing workers to comply and others not. It has become a test of how much power Musk wields over the government's operations as he pursues an unprecedented cost-cutting campaign with President Donald Trump's backing.
Twenty-one workers resigned from his so-called Department of Government Efficiency in protest on Tuesday, saying they refused to aid the downsizing effort. "We will not use our skills as technologists to compromise core government systems, jeopardize Americans' sensitive data, or dismantle critical public services," the employees wrote in a resignation posted online.
DOGE did not respond to a request for comment on the resignations.The workers, who include data scientists, product managers and the division head of IT, were employed in an office known as the United States Digital Service before Musk took it over and renamed it DOGE after a favourite cryptocurrency.
The resignations added to the drama surrounding Musk's email demand, which was sent to employees across the government asking them to summarize their accomplishments of the past week by Monday. In a post on X, the social media site Musk owns, he asserted that failure to respond would constitute resignation.
With the deadline approaching on Monday, the Office of Personnel Management, the government's human resources arm, told workers they could ignore the email.
Musk, the billionaire CEO of electric vehicle maker Tesla and rocket company SpaceX, was undeterred."Subject to the discretion of the president, they will be given another chance. Failure to respond a second time will result in termination," he wrote on X late on Monday without setting a new deadline.
Prior to the new OPM guidance, Trump said workers who did not respond would be "sort of semi-fired," adding to the uncertainty. Asked on Tuesday whether the renewed threat would be carried out against non-compliant employees, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump would defer to cabinet secretaries' guidance for their individual workforces.
The head-spinning developments exposed new fissures within Trump's administration over Musk's blunt-force approach. Even some Trump loyalists, such as Kash Patel, the newly installed FBI chief, told employees to hold off on replying.
Leavitt rejected any suggestion of rifts within the administration, saying everyone was "working as one team."Musk will attend Trump's cabinet meeting on Wednesday, she said.
Employees at several agencies said they received conflicting guidance from leadership, leaving them unsure how to proceed.The Department of Health and Human Services advised employees that if they chose to reply, they should refrain from mentioning specific drugs or contracts, according to an email reviewed by Reuters."Assume that what you write will be read by malign foreign actors and tailor your response accordingly," the email said.
The acting director of OPM itself sent an email to the agency's staff that said responding was voluntary "but strongly encouraged."
