By admin 
President Donald Trump has praised billionaire adviser Elon Musk’s latest initiative requiring federal employees to justify their jobs and productivity or risk being fired, calling it a necessary effort to eliminate inefficiency and waste in the U.S. government.
“I thought it was great because we have people that don’t even show up to work, and nobody even knows they work for the government,” Trump said on Monday during a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron. “There was a lot of genius in sending it.”
However, Trump did not provide any evidence to support his claims about federal employees failing to perform their duties or lacking oversight from agency managers.
His comments came after a turbulent weekend in which he encouraged Musk—who leads the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—to take a more aggressive approach to cutting government costs. In response, Musk ordered the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to email over two million federal employees, instructing them to submit five bullet points detailing their accomplishments from the past week.
The directive was met with immediate resistance from several government agencies, including the Departments of Defense, State, and Homeland Security, as well as the FBI. These agencies told employees to disregard the email or wait for further instructions. Homeland Security even announced it would respond to OPM on behalf of its employees.
Trump dismissed concerns over the controversy, claiming that agencies were mainly worried about “confidential things” being disclosed in the responses rather than opposing the broader effort to enforce accountability. The OPM email had explicitly warned employees not to include classified information in their replies.
Musk’s aggressive push to shrink the federal workforce under DOGE has sparked protests from employee unions, Democratic lawmakers, and even some constituents in Republican-leaning districts. However, the recent job justification mandate has triggered the first significant pushback from within Trump’s own administration.
Musk, who was a key financial supporter of Trump’s reelection campaign, has quickly established substantial influence in the White House. While the administration insists that Musk is merely an adviser with no formal authority, his impact is undeniable.
Previous efforts under Musk’s direction included an email offering employees the option to resign voluntarily, titled “A Fork in the Road”—a phrase he famously used when downsizing Twitter (now X). The recent directive’s subject line, “What did you do last week?” mirrors a question Musk often asks executives at his private companies.
Additionally, Musk has threatened federal employees with suspension if they do not return to in-person work immediately, reversing four years of remote work policies introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Gill Bikram Singh