Email Starts Power Clash Between Musk And Agency Leaders — Even The Trump Loyalists

Elon Musk’s weekend threat to federal workers triggered panic and confusion Sunday as administration officials rushed to issue sometimes conflicting guidance, setting in motion a power struggle between Musk and agency heads appointed by President Donald Trump to lead the federal government.

The guidance varied by agency, with some leaders telling their employees to wait before complying with Musk’s demand that they justify their jobs in writing and others either staying silent or offering vague advice on how to handle the Musk missive.

It’s the latest episode of Musk’s “move fast and break things” philosophy clashing with the layers of rules and laws that fortify the bureaucracy he hopes to hobble. And it’s the first sign that even staunch Trump loyalists are beginning to flex their political muscle against Musk, an unelected “special government employee,” whose power stems primarily from his proximity to the president.

“Elon Musk has no authority. He's not in the chain of command of these employees, so getting a direct order to do something or lose your job in some capacity when he had no authority to do that is something these agency heads are basically wising up to,” said Mark Maxin, an attorney with nearly four decades of experience in federal employment law, who served as counsel for labor relations at the Department of Labor under Democratic and Republican administrations.

Musk said Saturday on X that all federal employees would receive an email asking them what they did the week before, and failure to respond would be “taken as a resignation.” Hours later, employees across the government got an email directing them to provide about five bullet points detailing what they accomplished in the past week, with a deadline of 11:59 p.m. Eastern on Monday.

Cue the confusion. As millions of federal workers wondered when and how to respond — and if their jobs, already under attack, hung in the balance — leadership at some agencies urged employees not to immediately comply.

“No employee is obligated to report their activities outside of their Department chain of command,” read an email sent to State Department employees, obtained by POLITICO. Leaders at agencies from the National Institutes of Health to the Justice Department instructed workers not to respond until they receive further guidance, according to people familiar with the matter.

Even Kash Patel, the FBI director and fierce Trump loyalist, instructed agency staff to “please pause any responses,” in an email obtained by POLITICO. Similar language appears in guidance sent Sunday afternoon to Pentagon employees and obtained by POLITICO.

A DOGE spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The email, sent with the subject line “What did you do last week?” from an Office of Personnel Management human resources address, instructed employees not to share classified information. But Maxin, the labor lawyer, cautioned that respondents could still break the law if they shared information that was not classified, but privacy protected, such as personal identifying information about other employees.

Maxin added that Musk’s email violates federal sector employment law in several ways, including that employees are protected from being coerced to give out information. A threat of dismissal would likely fit the definition of coercion.

Legal experts continue to say Musk lacks the authority to fire anyone in the federal government, where workers are entitled to civil service protections, unlike at his private sector companies, where the world’s richest person has culled his own workforce.

“I don’t believe it would be legal, and I don’t think he really understands right now how he will even do what he’s threatened to do,” said Michael Fallings, an attorney specializing in federal employment law.

Speaking Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press," Sen. John Curtis (R-Utah) said, "I don't think this is a request that is that difficult," but also used the situation to urge Musk to shift his tone.

"We don't need to be so cold and hard," Curtis said, "and let's put a little compassion and, quite frankly, dignity, in this as well."

Musk’s social media post announcing the email came hours after Trump publicly pushed for the DOGE chief to “get more aggressive.”

And the move appears to have satisfied the president. On Sunday, Trump and Musk both posted a SpongeBob meme on social media joking that bureaucrats’ bullet points would include “cried about Trump, cried about Elon, made it into the office once, read some emails [and] cried about Trump and Elon some more.”

Democrats and labor advocates slammed the directive as cruel and illegal. The American Federation of Government Employees, the union that represents workers across the federal government, on Sunday sent a letter to OPM calling the email “nothing more than an irresponsible and sophomoric attempt to create confusion and bully the hard-working federal employees that serve our country” and requesting that the agency “rescind the email and apologize to all federal employees.”

“Elon Musk is traumatizing hardworking federal employees, their children and families,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said in a statement. “He has no legal authority to make his latest demands.”

And government workers, granted anonymity to speak candidly, told POLITICO the email — and the idea that their employment could be judged based on a handful of bullet points — was offensive. “This data call is such an oversimplification of our work; it’s insulting,” said one FDA official.

"If I answer this little pop quiz honestly, most of my listed activities would be cleaning up the mess caused by DOGE and the administration," said a career staffer at the Energy Department.

Anita Kumar, Daniel Payne, Hannah Northey, Paul McLeary, Josh Gerstein and Daniel Lippman contributed to this report.