Elon Musk follows president's orders, intensifies aggressive strategy

Elon Musk, who is in charge of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has asked more than two million federal workers to send him a email giving a brief report on their accomplishments for the week, but the matter has caused great confusion, questions about the authority Musk has to make such demands, and some say even a "clash of powers."

Over the weekend, President Donald Trump posted the following message on Truth Social: 

"Elon is doing a great job, But I would like to see him get more aggressive. Remember, We have a country to save!" Musk was quick to jump into action and on Saturday announced the following on X: "Consistent with President Donald Trump’s instructions, all federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week. Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation."

The email did, in fact, arrive just a few hours later to inboxes of millions of federal employees. In the email they are asked to submit five bullet points of what they accomplished last week. However, over the weekend, a great deal of confusion was created that some have even labeled a "clash of powers," due to the fact that the heads of several agencies, appointed by President Trump, have ordered their employees not to respond to the email from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) with the DOGE leader's request.

An email sent to State Department employees states that no employee is required to report their activities outside of their Department's chain of command. Leaders at the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Justice also ordered workers not to respond until they receive further guidance. Even Kash Patel, the director of the FBI, ordered the agency's staff to "pause any response." He was followed by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who ordered her intelligence officials to ignore Musk's request.

Throughout the weekend, the fundamental question was whether this was an order given by President Trump or whether it was a request from the DOGE handler. Although the president does have the authority to give such orders to agencies, Elon Musk is not a Cabinet member confirmed by the Senate and therefore does not have the authority to fire federal employees.

The matter was clarified this Monday when in the middle of the press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron, Trump explained the intention of the email, assuring that there are people who collect salary and do not even go to work and others who do not even exist, so that the request made by Musk would be a kind of first filter to see who is really working. In addition, the same Office of Personnel Management confirmed this Monday to the agencies that the response to the email is voluntary and that ignoring it is not going to be considered as a resignation or bring consequences of dismissal to employees.

Trump also used the moment to make it clear that he understands that some agencies have asked their workers not to respond since they handle confidential information. The president insisted that Musk's email was a "great" idea and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said, “Everyone is working together as one unified team at the direction of President Trump.”

According to the WSJ, the decision was consulted with the president by phone before Musk posted on X. However, according to different reports, agency heads and cabinet members were not advised of the move before the post reached millions of federal employees.

Although different media labeled the matter as a "clash of powers," after President Trump's clarifications and the email sent by OPM confirming that ignoring the email will not bring consequences, it seems clear that instead of a struggle for control what happened over the weekend was Musk's response to Trump's request to increase aggressivity. It's an intensification of the billionaire's way of moving full speed ahead even if along the way he breaks a few things. And for now the administration's aggressive style seems to meet the approval of most Americans.