Federal workers faced their second midnight deadline Monday to comply with Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency‘s demands to list their weekly accomplishments.
Of the federal government’s roughly 2.4 million person workforce, excluding military personnel, just over 1 million responded to DOGE’s previous email demand. Musk and President Donald Trump have defended the requirement, which calls on federal workers to list five personal accomplishments from the past week, though other White House officials had backed away from the suggestion that failing to do so will result in termination as Musk has said publicly.
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This second prompt, first sent to workers Friday evening by Trump’s Office of Personnel Management, again tells workers to list five weekly accomplishments and to plan doing so in perpetuity every Monday by midnight.
White House, DOGE, and OPM officials declined to preview how many employees they expect to comply with Musk’s latest demand but said they would provide an update later this week.
As with the first email, the second deadline was handled very differently across Trump’s administration.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told Pentagon employees not to respond during the first round but directed civilian employees to meet Monday’s midnight deadline.
Justice Department employees were similarly required to respond to OPM on Monday after previously being exempted due to the “confidential and sensitive nature of the Department’s work,” but FBI Director Kash Patel maintained his past guidance, directing employees not to respond, “until further notice.”
The State Department alerted its employees over the weekend that department leadership would handle the request on their behalf, while the Federal Bureau of Prisons told its staff that any “disclosure” of “duties may compromise institution security and operations.”
Musk himself offered some guidance over the weekend, reiterating OPM’s instructions that workers not disclose any classified or sensitive information.
“The President has made it clear that this is mandatory for the executive branch,” he posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Saturday. “Anyone working on classified or other sensitive matters is still required to respond if they receive the email, but can simply reply that their work is sensitive.”
Despite varying guidance regarding Musk’s deadline, the DOGE head and the president have said that the email demands themselves are meant to determine if people on the federal payroll actually exist, suggesting that workers who fail to comply would be “on the bubble.”
“What we are trying to get to the bottom of is, we think there are a number of people on the payroll who are dead, which is probably why they can’t respond — and some people who are not real people,” Musk said when asked about the email requests at Trump’s Cabinet meeting last Wednesday. “If you have a pulse and two neurons, you can reply to an email.”
“Maybe they’re going to be gone, maybe they’re not around, maybe they have other jobs, maybe they moved and they’re not where they’re supposed to be,” Trump agreed. “A lot of things could have happened.”
The “five things” emails comes as the Trump administration is actively preparing for significant downsizing of the federal workforce.
OPM and the Office of Management and Budget circulated a memo to all federal departments and agencies Wednesday morning setting a two-phased schedule for “large-scale reductions in force.”
“The federal government is costly, inefficient, and deeply in debt. At the same time, it is not producing results for the American public. Instead, tax dollars are being siphoned off to fund unproductive and unnecessary programs that benefit radical interest groups while hurting hard-working American citizens,” the memo reads, before setting deadlines of March 13 and April 14 for departments to send the White House plans for workforce cuts.
The memo also made specific mention of seven “tools” department and agency heads should use to develop their plans:
— Continuing to comply with the hiring freeze outlined in the Jan. 20, 2025, Presidential Memorandum Hiring Freeze.
— Establishing internal processes that ensure agency leadership has visibility and/or direct sign-off on all potential job offers and candidates prior to extending offers.
— Eliminating nonstatutorily mandated functions.
— Removing underperforming employees or employees engaged in misconduct, and continuing to evaluate probationary employees.
— Reducing headcount through attrition and allowing term or temporary positions to expire without renewal.
— Separating reemployed annuitants in areas likely subject to RIFs.
— Renegotiating provisions of collective bargaining agreements that would inhibit enhanced government efficiency and employee accountability.
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Meanwhile, Democrats sought to use the “five things” emails to tout their own accomplishments in February. The Democratic National Committee released 32 points on social media, in a post that was mocked by even the party’s own supporters.
