Some Trump officials push back against Musk’s ultimatum to workers

WASHINGTON — Several Trump-appointed agency leaders urged federal workers not to comply with Elon Musk’s order to summarize their accomplishments for the past week or be removed from their positions, even as Musk doubled down on his demand over the weekend.

Their instructions in effect countermanded Musk’s order across much of the government, challenging the broad authority President Donald Trump has given to the world’s richest man to make drastic changes to the federal bureaucracy. The standoff serves as one of the first significant tests of how far Musk’s power will extend.

As the directive ricocheted across the federal government, officials at some agencies, including the FBI, the office coordinating country’s intelligence agencies and the departments of Defense, State, Health and Human Services and Homeland Security, told their employees not to respond.

Musk’s email had even reached the inboxes of sitting federal judges — who are in the judicial branch, not the executive branch. The administrative office for the federal courts advised judges and staff that “this email did not originate from the judiciary or the administrative office and we suggest that no action be taken.”

The public pushback reflects a growing unease — and, in some cases, alarm — behind the scenes across the Trump administration about the perception of Musk’s unchecked power.

The unease runs from lower staff to some Cabinet secretaries, who have tired of having to justify specific intricacies of agency policy and having to scramble to address unforeseen controversies that Musk has ignited.

Those officials are aware that he has influence over Trump privately, and they fear Musk using X, the social media website he owns, to single out people he views as obstructing him, according to one senior administration official.

One person who was quiet about the controversy throughout much of the weekend was Trump; after posting on social media Saturday morning that he wanted Musk to be more “aggressive” and then bragging about the purge of federal workers in a speech hours later, the president had remained mute on the subject for much of Sunday.

That afternoon, however, Trump posted a meme, which he said came from Musk, mocking federal workers who had to explain their duties and accomplishments, but he did not weigh in on the internal government conflict between his appointees.

Musk’s public statements about his cost-cutting effort, known as the Department of Government Efficiency, have often expressed an open contempt for the federal workforce, which includes some of Trump’s supporters.

By Sunday afternoon, some of the pushback against Musk from administration officials — coming in large part from the national security apparatus and law enforcement agencies — had become public and explicit.

“The Department of Defense is responsible for reviewing the performance of its personnel and it will conduct any review in accordance with its own procedures,” Darin S. Selnick, the acting Pentagon official in charge of personnel, said in a statement, instructing Pentagon employees to “for now, please pause any response.”

Tulsi Gabbard, director of the office of national intelligence, ordered all intelligence community officers not to respond, in a message to intelligence officials reviewed by The New York Times.

“Given the inherently sensitive and classified nature of our work, IC employees should not respond to the OPM email,” Gabbard wrote.

FBI Director Kash Patel wrote in an email to employees that “the FBI, through the office of the director, is in charge of all our review processes,” telling workers that they should “for now, please pause any responses.”

Senior personnel officials at the State and Homeland Security departments also instructed their employees to not respond to the email.

At the Justice Department and FBI, the threatening signals from Musk were met with a mix of anger and amazement that anyone would issue such a blanket demand without consideration for sensitive areas such as criminal investigations, legal confidentiality or grand jury material.

Some law enforcement supervisors quickly told employees to wait for more guidance from managers Monday before responding to the demand, according to current and former officials.

Other departments gave conflicting guidance. The Department of Health and Human Services told its employees Sunday morning to follow the directive. An hour later, an email from the Trump-appointed acting director of the National Institutes of Health, a subordinate agency, told employees to hold off on responding. Hours later, the health department told all employees to “pause” responses to the ultimatum.

On Saturday, Musk posted a demand for government employees to summarize their accomplishments for the week, warning that failure to do so would be taken as a resignation. Soon after, the Office of Personnel Management, which manages the federal workforce, sent an email asking civil servants for a list of accomplishments, but it did not include the threat of removal for not complying.

Unions representing federal workers suggested that Musk’s order was not valid. They advised their members to follow guidance from their supervisors on how, and whether, to respond to the email.

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