When Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) Chair Elon Musk asked federal staffers to respond to a personal productivity email or get fired — not all federal agencies complied.
While some leaders of federal agencies voiced support for the Office of Personnel and Management (OPM) email instructing staffers to provide a summary of the tasks they accomplished the previous week by Monday at 11:59 p.m., and participated themselves, others instructed their agencies to ignore it.
One million federal workers did comply with Musk’s request, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Tuesday.
‘All federal workers should be working at the same pace that President Trump is working and moving,’ Leavitt told reporters at the White House Tuesday. ‘We have a country to save, and we want this federal government to be responsive to the needs of the American people who re-elected this president to have historic, massive reform. And that’s what the intention of this idea is.’
Musk unveiled the email in a post on X Saturday and cautioned that a failure to reply was equivalent to handing in a resignation.
‘Consistent with President @realDonaldTrump’s instructions, all federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week,’ Musk wrote. ‘Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.’
Although the deadline has passed, it’s not over for those who didn’t reply. Musk said later on Monday in a post on X that ‘subject to the discretion of the President, they will be given another chance’ to respond. Failure to do so will result in termination, he said.
However, the White House said Tuesday that employees should look to their own agency for guidance on how to proceed with the directive.
‘Agencies should consider any appropriate actions regarding employees who fail to respond to activity,’ a White House official told Fox News Digital Tuesday. ‘It is agency leadership’s decision as to what actions are taken.’
Musk is heading up the newly created DOGE, which aims to reduce government waste and fraud.
Here are the agencies that followed Musk’s directive:
Department of Transportation
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy listed five accomplishments he completed for the week, pointing to the Trump administration’s effort to halt New York City’s congestion pricing toll program, which charges passenger vehicles $9 to enter certain areas of Manhattan.
‘Mr. President, 5 things I did last week:’ Duffy posted to X Monday. ‘1. Terminated NYC elitist, anti-worker congestion pricing. 2. Launched an investigation into the $16 billion in taxpayer dollars wasted on a high-speed rail project that, after 17 years, has yet to lay a single mile of track. 3. Saved $10 million a year by eliminating redundant and outdated landlines.’
Other tasks Duffy listed included visiting the Air Traffic Control Command Center in Warrenton, Virginia, and touring the Burbank, California, traffic control tower.
Department of Veterans Affairs
Secretary of Veterans Affairs Doug Collins posted his own productivity report to X Monday, taking credit for processing 1 million disability claims for fiscal year 2025 and identifying ‘wasteful’ contracts to cancel.
‘I launched a review of VA’s community care practices so we can maximize Veterans’ health care choices (more on this in the future)!’ Collins said in the post.
Small Business Administration
Kelly Loeffler, who is leading the Small Business Administration (SBA), shared a list with Fox News Digital of five things she accomplished following her Wednesday confirmation.
Among the tasks she cited were supporting ‘the Office of the Advocate to work across agencies to cut burdensome regulation imposed on small businesses,’ and establishing the Office of Manufacturing and Trade to advance President Donald Trump’s ‘America First’ agenda.
Other tasks included creating a fraud working group to analyze loan fraud and meeting with governors to discuss SBA’s services at the state level.
SBA aims to provide small business owners with counseling, capital and contracting expertise to advance their businesses.
Here are the agencies that have pushed back on Musk’s email edict:
Department of Defense
Darin Selnick, who is performing the duties of the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, issued a letter Sunday to civilian personnel at the Pentagon about how to handle the matter.
‘When and if required, the Department will coordinate responses to the email you have received from OPM,’ he wrote. ‘For now, please pause any response to the OPM email titled, ‘What did you do last week.”
State Department
The State Department also ensured its staff didn’t need to feel compelled to respond to OPM’s email.
‘The State Department will respond on behalf of the Department,’ Tibor Nagy, the acting undersecretary of management, said in an email Saturday. ‘No employee is obligated to report their activities outside their Department chain of command.’
Justice Department and FBI
FBI Director Kash Patel also instructed his employees to disregard Musk’s email.
‘FBI personnel may have received an email from OPM requesting information,’ Patel told employees in an email on Saturday. ‘The FBI, through the Office of the Director, is in charge of all of our review processes, and will conduct reviews in accordance with FBI procedures. When and if further information is required, we will coordinate the responses. For now, please pause any responses.’
Likewise, the Justice Department also issued similar instructions, according to a letter obtained by CNN.
Health and Human Services
While the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) didn’t order its employees to disregard the OPM email, it did warn its personnel to exercise caution if they chose to respond and use ‘a high level of generality and describe your work in a manner to protect sensitive data,’ NBC News reported.
‘There is no HHS expectation that HHS employees respond to OPM and there is no impact to your employment with the agency if you choose not to respond,’ the email from HHS said, according to NBC News. ‘That said, if you choose to respond, here are the guidelines you should follow.’
‘Assume that what you write will be read by malign foreign actors and tailor your response accordingly,’ the email said.
An HHS spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.
President Donald Trump said Monday the rejection by the agencies was ‘friendly,’ and due to the nature of their work.
‘That was done in a friendly manner,’ Trump said at a Monday press briefing alongside French President Emmanuel Macron. ‘Only things such as, perhaps Marco (Rubio) at State Department, where they have very confidential things. Or the FBI, where they’re working on confidential things. And they don’t mean that in any way combatively with Elon. They’re just saying there are some people that you don’t want to really have them tell you what they’re working on last week.’
Fox News’ Emma Colton contributed to this report.