Featured Image Credit: Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images for The New York Times
Topics: Elon Musk, Donald Trump, Politics
Mia Williams
Topics: Elon Musk, Donald Trump, Politics
Elon Musk sent a bizarrely threatening email to US government staff last weekend ordering they comply within 48 hours or face the sack.
After Musk was appointed by the President to front the new Department of Government Efficiency, it seems as though the power may have gone to his head.
Musk sent out a 'disrespectful' ultimatum to federal workers at the State Department, the FBI, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Veterans Affairs Department among several other departments.
All staff received a cryptic email from an account simply titled 'HR', which contained an extremely short message.
Advert
The subject line read: "What did you do last week?"
The body of the email then continued: "Please reply to this email with approx. 5 bullets of what you accomplished last week and cc your manager."
Musk's bold demand also asked workers not to include links, attachments or classified information and they were given a deadline to send over the information by 11.59pm on Monday.
Advert
On X, Musk added: "Consistent with President @realDonaldTrump’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 brutal approach did not go down well with staff, nor Everett Kelley, the president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) union.
In his statement defending workers, he said: "It is cruel and disrespectful to hundreds of thousands of veterans who are wearing their second uniform in the civil service to be forced to justify their job duties to this out-of-touch, privileged, unelected billionaire who has never performed one single hour of honest public service in his life."
Advert
In response to the bizarre email, Tibor Nagy of the State Department wrote: "No employee is obligated to report their activities outside of their Department chain of command."
Others were confused about how Musk could possibly find the time to read all of the responses, to which Musk admitted that the email wasn't entirely serious and went on to issue another ominous warning.
He wrote on X: "This was basically a check to see if the employee had a pulse and was capable of replying to an email.
Advert
"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."
But it isn't the only time this week where people were confused by Musk's actions.
His appearance at the right-wing conference CPAC on Friday (21 February), saw the billionaire waving a chainsaw around on stage.
He noted that it was to represent the 'chainsaw for bureaucracy’, and said ‘waste is pretty much everywhere’ in the US government.
Advert
Naturally, many users on social media accused Musk of insensitivity when it comes to cutting the jobs and livelihoods of dedicated workers.
"Elon Musk thinks that firing thousands of people, including veterans, military spouses, people with kids, is like playing a video game where he gets to take a chainsaw to their lives," one has since hit out on X (formerly Twitter).
Another wrote: "Elon Musk, who is wearing sunglasses indoors, wields a chainsaw to celebrate the tens of thousands of federal employees he’s fired indiscriminately and without explanation."