More than 1 million federal workers respond to Musk’s DOGE email demanding to know what they did last week

WASHINGTON — More than one million federal staffers, fewer than half the government’s workforce, have responded to Elon Musk’s demand to come up with five things they accomplished on the job last week, the White House said Tuesday.

The edict was emailed to federal workers Saturday, with Musk announcing a deadline of 11:59 p.m. Monday to answer while warning on X that “failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.”

Musk then walked back his threat Monday evening and offered the staffers a second chance to submit their responses.

“I can announce that we’ve had more than one million workers who have chosen to participate in this very simple task of, again, sending five bullet points to your direct supervisor or manager,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters.

The current federal workface is made up of 2.4 million people, excluding active-duty military and Postal Service employees, according to Trump administration data.

Musk issued his directive after President Trump told the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) head to be “more aggressive” in his efforts to upend the federal government.

The “idea” to send federal workers the email came from the billionaire boss of SpaceX and Tesla, Leavitt said — noting agency heads are ultimately responsible for deciding whether their employees should send their lists on to DOGE.

Musk was expected to attend Trump’s first cabinet meeting Wednesday — but Leavitt stressed that the only department secretaries are ultimately in charge of firing workers. Musk’s DOGE is not an official government department.

After Musk’s tweet threatening to fire workers who did not comply with his email, several agency heads quickly told their employees not to respond to the order, partly because of national security concerns.

Officials at the Office of Personnel Management then sent out an email Monday instructing workers that the Musk directive was “voluntary” and that not replying would not mean getting fired.

But while Musk followed up by claiming federal workers would be given a “second chance” to respond, he said that would be it for leniency.

“The email request was utterly trivial, as the standard for passing the test was to type some words and press send!” the world’s richest man wrote sarcastically on X. “Yet so many failed even that inane test, urged on in some cases by their managers.

“Subject to the discretion of the President, they will be given another chance,” he continued in another post. “Failure to respond a second time will result in termination.” 

The Musk missives created confusion for federal workers who were uncertain whether to follow through with the demand coming from Trump’s righthand man or from their bosses.

Trump defended Musk asking federal workers to send their five accomplishments, telling reporters in the Oval Office on Monday, “I thought it was great because we have people that don’t show up to work and nobody even knows if they work for the government.

“What he’s doing is saying ‘Are you actually working?’ ” the president said.

The president added to the confusion on Tuesday after Leavitt’s press conference, suggesting the employees would, in fact, be fired.

“Well, it’s somewhat voluntary, but it’s also, if you don’t answer, I guess you get fired,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. 

“They’re not allowed to be working for us and be working for somebody else. We’re paying them a lot of money, paying them. So we’ll see if that solves the problem,” Trump added. 

Leavitt also stood by Musk’s instructions, saying she herself sent along five points about what she did in the press office.

“I do five things in about 10 minutes, and all federal workers should be working at the same pace that President Trump is working and moving,” she said. “We have a country to save, and we want this federal government to be responsive to the needs of the American people.”