Trump praises Musk's strategy of productivity emails: 'If you don't answer ... you're fired'

President Donald Trump backed the Elon Musk-led initiative to require weekly productivity reports from federal employees, warning that those who fail to comply could lose their jobs.

The move followed an email from Musk, director of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), instructing federal employees to submit a report with five tasks completed during the past week. The deadline to comply with the request was 11:59 p.m. Monday. Musk made it clear that failure to respond would amount to a resignation.

Trump praised the initiative, noting that it will identify employees not performing their jobs. "I thought it was great because we have people who don't show up to work and nobody even knows if they work for the government. So by asking the question, 'Tell us what you did this week,' what [Musk is] doing is saying, ‘Are you actually working?' If you don't answer, you’re sort of semi-fired, or you're fired, because a lot of people are not answering because they don’t even exist" he said.

Resistance within the government and union backlash

Despite Trump's endorsement, some government agencies have challenged the measure. The Department of Defense and the FBI instructed their employees to ignore Musk's request, arguing that performance monitoring should be conducted under their own internal procedures.

"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 Selnick, undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, stated. He directed employees to stop any response to the email sent by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) titled "What did you do last week?"

For his part, FBI Director Kash Patel issued a similar directive, assuring that the agency will continue its own internal reviews.

Predictably, the American Federation of Government Employees union also criticized the move, calling it an unwarranted attack on federal workers.

Musk gives 'second chance' to federal workers until Tuesday

In a post on his X account during Monday afternoon, Musk noted that federal workers will have an extra day to send the mail. In the post, the South African tycoon notes that this measure of grace comes from Donald Trump, but warned that "failure to respond a second time will result in termination."