‘Genius’ move: Trump praises Musk’s justify-your-job order to federal workers
Washington: President Donald Trump defended the efforts of billionaire adviser Elon Musk to force federal workers to justify their roles and productivity or be fired, casting it as a legitimate bid to root out fraud and waste in the US government.
“I thought it was great, because we have people that don’t show up to work, and nobody even knows that they work for the government,” Trump said Monday at a meeting with visiting French President Emmanuel Macron. “There was a lot of genius in sending it.”
Elon Musk at the Conservative Political Action Conference last week.Credit: AP
The president’s remarks followed a chaotic weekend in which Trump urged Musk, who heads the Department of Government Efficiency, known commonly as DOGE, to be “more aggressive” in cutting costs. Musk responded by having the Office of Personnel Management send an email to more than two million federal workers asking them to submit five bullet points explaining what they accomplished in their jobs over the last week.
The directive, however, quickly met resistance across several agencies where Trump-appointed and Senate-confirmed officials are now in place. The departments of Defence, State and Homeland Security all told workers to disregard the email or wait for further instructions, as did the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The Department of Homeland Security told employees it would reply to OPM on their behalf.
Trump downplayed the disconnect, saying that agencies were simply concerned about “confidential things” being revealed in the emails, rather than pushing back on the broader accountability effort. The email to employees warned not to include classified information in their response.
US President Donald Trump.Credit: AP
Musk’s increasingly drastic efforts to put pressure on the federal workforce as part of DOGE’s broad push to scale back the size of the US government have drawn protests from employee unions, Democrats in Congress and even constituents in Republican-leaning districts.
One veteran in East Texas told Republican Congressman Pete Sessions he supported eliminating excessive spending, but criticised Musk’s handling of the matter.
“The guy in South Africa is not doing you any good — he’s hurting you more than he’s helping,” the man told Sessions at a community meeting, drawing applause, the New York Times.
