DON GONYEA, HOST:
This weekend, President Trump told Elon Musk to be more aggressive with the Department of Government Efficiency, a team that's already fired tens of thousands of federal workers. Soon after this directive from Trump, Musk gave federal employees an ultimatum. Report what you accomplished this past week or lose your job. Now some of Trump's cabinet members are telling their workers to skip Musk's requests, sparking confusion. NPR's Luke Garrett reports.
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LUKE GARRETT, BYLINE: On Saturday, the Office of Personnel Management sent an email to federal workers requesting five bullet points of what they've done in the last week. Meanwhile, Elon Musk posted on X, his social media platform, that failure to respond will be taken as a resignation. The tech billionaire defended the OPM email as a way to root out fraud and as a, quote, "basic pulse check." But some agency leaders, like FBI Director Kash Patel and defense officials, are telling their workers to hold off on answering this email. On Sunday, Republican Senator John Curtis of Utah defended Musk on CBS News.
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JOHN CURTIS: I don't think this is a request that is that difficult. I would ask my employees to let me know what they're doing.
GARRETT: Curtis also admitted the way Musk is running DOGE has been too difficult on federal workers.
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CURTIS: If I could say one thing to Elon Musk, it's, like, please put a dose of compassion in this. These are real people.
GARRETT: Meanwhile, at the Conservative Political Action Conference, also known as CPAC, Musk wielded a chainsaw and promised to continue his efforts to reduce the size of the government.
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ELON MUSK: This is the chainsaw for bureaucracy.
GARRETT: And Trump took a victory lap at the conference and celebrated the creation of DOGE.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Which is now waging war on government waste, fraud and abuse, and Elon is doing a great job.
GARRETT: Federal workers have until midnight Monday to respond with their bullet points of accomplishments or risk losing their jobs. The American Federation of Government Employees, a union that represents nearly a million civil servants, said they'd challenge any job losses in court.
Luke Garrett, NPR News, Washington.
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