Trump appointees appear to contradict Musk for first time in pushback to OPM email

A rift appeared to open Sunday between some of President Donald Trump’s agency heads and Elon Musk, the billionaire tasked with reforming the federal government, over Musk’s demand that all federal employees state their weekly accomplishments or risk termination.

A rift appeared to open Sunday between some of President Donald Trump’s agency heads and Elon Musk, the billionaire tasked with reforming the federal government, over Musk’s demand that all federal employees state their weekly accomplishments or risk termination. By Sunday evening, leaders at the Pentagon, Federal Bureau of Investigation, State Department, Department of Homeland Security and Department of Energy had all instructed their staff not to reply to an email that federal workers received from the Office of Personnel Management on Saturday afternoon with the subject line: “What did you do last week?” Some managers, including at the Department of Health and Human Services, instructed workers to comply with the request to send a list of five accomplishments from the past week to a generic government email address, only to later reverse course. And others simply told their staff to wait until Monday — and not to reply to the note before then. The White House did not respond to a request for comment about the apparent discrepancy between Musk’s directive and the guidance provided by agency heads. The scramble to discern Trump and Musk’s exact intentions with the email added another layer of uncertainty to an already-rattled federal workforce. It seemed to set up a showdown between some agency heads — who were appointed by Trump himself, and who are all considered loyalists to his cause — and Musk, who has paid little mind to the strict chains of command that dictate life within the federal bureaucracy. Amid the confusion, Musk showed no sign of easing up.