Elon Musk said U.S. federal employees have a "second chance" to justify their work or face job termination following the lapse of the initial deadline on Tuesday, during which personnel at several federal offices were instructed to ignore his directive.
Musk, the world's richest person and President Donald Trump's biggest donor, had originally given federal government employees until the end of Monday to explain their work achievements in an email.
The demand represents the latest challenge from Musk against government workers as his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) works toward gutting federal staffing and spending.
"Subject to the discretion of the President, they will be given another chance," Musk said Monday evening on social media platform X, which he owns.
"Failure to respond a second time will result in termination," he added, without providing a new deadline.
The deadline came and went with much confusion among an already anxious workforce after several U.S. federal agencies – including some led by prominent Trump loyalists – told staff to ignore the email, at least temporarily.
Referring to his original email request, Musk said it had been "utterly trivial ... yet so many failed even that inane test, urged on in some cases by their managers."
DOGE, a wide-ranging entity run by the tech entrepreneur, has faced increasing resistance on multiple fronts to its cost-cutting campaign, including court rulings and some pressure from lawmakers.
More than 2 million federal employees received an email on Saturday from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) – the government's HR department – giving them until 11:59 pm Monday to submit "approximately 5 bullets of what you accomplished last week."
The message followed Musk's post on X that "all federal workers" would receive the email and that "failure to respond will be taken as a resignation."
As confusion over what to make of the threat spread, Trump had defended Musk's Saturday message, calling it "ingenious" as it would expose whether "people are working."
"If people don't respond, it's very possible that there is no such person or they're not working," Trump told reporters.
Non-responders would be "sort of semi-fired" or fired, Trump added without explaining his thinking further.
Musk on Monday said Saturday's email "was basically a check to see if the employee had a pulse and was capable of replying to an email."
"This mess will get sorted out this week. Lot of people in for a rude awakening and strong dose of reality. They don't get it yet, but they will," he added.
On Sunday, the Defense Department posted a note requesting staff "pause any response to the OPM email titled 'What did you do last week.'"
U.S. media reported that Trump administration-appointed officials at the FBI, the State Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence also instructed staff not to respond directly.
Cybersecurity seemed to be a key concern, with staff at the Department of Health and Human Services told to "assume that what you write will be read by malign foreign actors" and that they should "tailor your response accordingly."
At the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, workers were told their answers would stay within the department, at least for the present, and that an answer was not mandatory, according to an email to staff.
Meanwhile, workers at the Treasury Department were directed to comply with Musk's request as it "reflects an effort to increase accountability by the federal workforce, just as there is in the private sector," said an email sent to Treasury staff, seen by Agence France-Presse (AFP).
As confusion spread across the federal workforce, speaking anonymously, an administration official had told Politico that employees should defer to their agencies on how to respond to the email.
Unions quickly opposed Musk's request, with the largest federal employee union, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), vowing to challenge any unlawful terminations.
Several recent polls indicate that most Americans disapprove of the disruption to the nationwide federal workforce.
Concern has begun to emerge on Capitol Hill from Trump's own Republican party, which controls both the House and the Senate.
"If I could say one thing to Elon Musk, it's like, 'Please put a dose of compassion in this,'" said Senator John Curtis of Utah, whose state has 33,000 federal employees.
"These are real people. These are real lives. These are mortgages," Curtis said on CBS' "Face the Nation."
Dozens of lawsuits against Musk's threats or demands have yielded mixed results, with some requests for immediate halts to his executive orders being denied by judges.
One federal judge on Monday barred the Education Department and the Office of Personnel Management from sharing sensitive information with the Musk-led department.
