{"id":462,"date":"2025-02-23T22:49:09","date_gmt":"2025-02-23T22:49:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2025\/02\/23\/key-federal-agencies-refuse-to-comply-with-musks-latest-demand-in-his-cost-cutting-crusade-the-associated-press\/"},"modified":"2025-02-23T22:49:09","modified_gmt":"2025-02-23T22:49:09","slug":"key-federal-agencies-refuse-to-comply-with-musks-latest-demand-in-his-cost-cutting-crusade-the-associated-press","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2025\/02\/23\/key-federal-agencies-refuse-to-comply-with-musks-latest-demand-in-his-cost-cutting-crusade-the-associated-press\/","title":{"rendered":"Key federal agencies refuse to comply with Musk\u2019s latest demand in his cost-cutting crusade – The Associated Press"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Key U.S. agencies, including the FBI, State Department and the Pentagon, have instructed their employees not to comply with cost-cutting chief Elon Musk\u2019s latest demand<\/a><\/span> that federal workers explain what they accomplished last week \u2014 or risk losing their job.<\/p>\n

The pushback from appointees of President Donald Trump marked a new level of chaos and confusion within the beleaguered federal workforce, just a month after Trump returned to the White House and quickly began fulfilling campaign promises to shrink the government.<\/p>\n

Administration officials scrambled throughout the weekend to interpret Musk\u2019s unusual mandate, which apparently has Trump\u2019s backing despite some lawmakers arguing it is illegal. Unions want the administration to rescind the request and apologize to workers, and are threatening to sue.<\/p>\n

Some officials are resisting. Others are encouraging their workers to comply. At some agencies, there was conflicting guidance.<\/p>\n

One message on Sunday morning from the Department of Health and Human Services, led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., instructed its roughly 80,000 employees to comply. That was shortly after the acting general counsel, Sean Keveney, had instructed some not to.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll be candid with you. Having put in over 70 hours of work last week advancing Administration\u2019s priorities, I was personally insulted to receive the below email,\u201d Keveney said in an email viewed by The Associated Press that acknowledged a broad sense of \u201cuncertainty and stress\u201d within the agency. <\/p>\n

Keveney laid out security concerns and pointed out some of the work done by the agency\u2019s employees may be protected by attorney-client privilege: \u201cI have received no assurances that there are appropriate protections in place to safeguard responses to this email.\u201d<\/p>\n

Musk\u2019s team sent an email to hundreds of thousands of federal employees on Saturday giving them roughly 48 hours to report five specific things they had accomplished last week. In a separate message on X, Musk said any employee who failed to respond by the deadline \u2014 set in the email as 11:59 p.m. EST Monday \u2014 would lose their job.<\/p>\n

Democrats and even some Republicans were critical of Musk\u2019s ultimatum, which came just hours after Trump encouraged him on social media to \u201cget more aggressive\u201d in reducing the size of the government through his so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. The day before, Musk celebrated his new position by waving a giant chainsaw<\/a><\/span> during an appearance at a conservative conference.<\/p>\n

Sen. John Curtis, R-Utah, was among the members of Trump\u2019s own party who had concerns. Utah has 33,000 federal employees.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I could say one thing to Elon Musk, it\u2019s like, please put a dose of compassion in this,\u201d Curtis said. \u201cThese are real people. These are real lives. These are mortgages. … It\u2019s a false narrative to say we have to cut and you have to be cruel to do it as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., questioned the legal basis the Trump administration would have for dismissing tens of thousands of workers for refusing to heed Musk\u2019s latest demand, though the email did not include the threat about workers losing their jobs.<\/p>\n

For Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., there was no doubt: \u201cThe actions he\u2019s taking are illegal, and we need to shut down this illegal operation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump mocked the affected workers in a meme he posted Sunday on his social media network. The post featured a cartoon character writing a list of accomplishments from the previous week led by, \u201cCried about Trump,\u201d \u201cCried about Elon,\u201d \u201cMade it into the office for once,\u201d and \u201cRead some emails.\u201d <\/p>\n

Newly confirmed FBI Director Kash Patel<\/a><\/span>, an outspoken Trump ally, instructed bureau employees to ignore Musk\u2019s request, at least for now.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 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,\u201d Patel wrote in an email confirmed by the AP. \u201cWhen and if further information is required, we will coordinate the responses. For now, please pause any responses.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ed Martin<\/a><\/span>, the interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, sent his staff a message Sunday that may cause more confusion. Martin noted that he responded to Musk\u2019s order.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet me clarify: We will comply with this OPM request whether by replying or deciding not to reply,\u201d Martin wrote in the email obtained by the AP, referring to the Office of Personnel Management.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlease make a good faith effort to reply and list your activities (or not, as you prefer), and I will, as I mentioned, have your back regarding any confusion,\u201d Martin continued. \u201cWe can do this.\u201d <\/p>\n

The night before, Martin had instructed staff to comply. \u201cDOGE and Elon are doing great work. Historic. We are happy to participate,\u201d Martin wrote at that time.<\/p>\n

Officials at the Departments of State and Defense were more consistent.<\/p>\n

Tibor Nagy, acting undersecretary of state for management, told employees in an email that department leadership would respond on behalf of workers. \u201cNo employee is obligated to report their activities outside of their Department chain of command,\u201d Nagy wrote in an email.<\/p>\n

Pentagon leadership instructed employees to \u201cpause\u201d any response to Musk\u2019s team as well. \u201cThe Department of Defense is responsible for reviewing the performance of its personnel and it will conduct any review in accordance with its own procedures,\u201d according to an email from Jules Hurst, the deputy undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness. \u201cWhen and if required, the Department will coordinate responses.\u201d<\/p>\n

Everett Kelley, president of the 800,000-member American Federation of Government Employees, said in a letter Sunday to the administration that it should rescind Musk\u2019s original email request and apologize to all federal workers by the end of the day.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe believe that employees have no obligation to respond to this plainly unlawful email absent other lawful direction,\u201d he wrote, describing Musk as \u201cunelected and unhinged.\u201d <\/p>\n

Thousands of government employees have already been forced out of the federal workforce \u2014 either by being fired or through a \u201cdeferred resignation\u2019\u2019 offer \u2014 during the first month of Trump\u2019s second term.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

There is no official figure available for the total firings or layoffs so far, but the AP has tallied<\/a><\/span> hundreds of thousands of workers who are being affected. Many work outside of Washington.<\/p>\n

Musk on Sunday called his latest request \u201ca very basic pulse check.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reason this matters is that a significant number of people who are supposed to be working for the government are doing so little work that they are not checking their email at all!\u201d Musk wrote on X. \u201cIn some cases, we believe non-existent people or the identities of dead people are being used to collect paychecks. In other words, there is outright fraud.\u201d<\/p>\n

He has provided no evidence of such fraud. Separately, Musk and Trump have falsely claimed<\/a><\/span> in recent days that tens of millions of dead people over 100 years old are receiving Social Security payments.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, thousands of other employees are preparing to leave the federal workforce this coming week, including probationary civilian workers at the Pentagon<\/a><\/span> and contractors at the U.S. Agency for International Development. The USAID move escalates a monthlong administration assault on the international humanitarian agency<\/a><\/span> that has frozen its funding.<\/p>\n

Curtis and Van Hollen were on CBS\u2019 \u201cFace the Nation\u201d and Lawler appeared on ABC\u2019s `This Week.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/h2>\n

Peoples reported from New York. Associated Press writers Byron Tau, Ellen Knickmeyer and Tara Copp contributed to this report. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Key U.S. agencies, including the FBI, State Department and the Pentagon, have instructed their employees not to comply with cost-cutting chief Elon Musk\u2019s latest demand that federal workers explain what they accomplished last week \u2014 or risk losing their job. The pushback from appointees of President Donald Trump marked a new level […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":463,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}