1 million federal workers could lose their jobs! Trump says they've been asked what work they've done recently and got no answers
2025-02-26 21:02:44
TiranaPost
About 1 million federal workers could lose their jobs after they failed to respond to a request from Elon Musk to explain what they had been doing over the past week. President Donald Trump said Monday that those who fail to respond could be considered fired.
“We’re trying to figure out if people are working,” Trump said from the White House, during a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron. “If someone doesn’t respond, they probably don’t exist or they just don’t work.”
The email, sent by the Office of Personnel Management, asked 2 million employees to submit a list of five things they had done in the past week. While the email was presented as optional, Musk — now head of the Department of Government Efficiency — said on the X platform: “Failure to respond will be considered resignation.”
Trump fully supported Musk's approach, calling the idea "brilliant" and suggesting it was part of a broader effort to fight fraud and cut red tape. "We've found hundreds of billions of dollars in fraud so far, and we're just getting started," he said.
Meanwhile, several federal agency leaders, including new FBI Director Kash Patel, have asked employees not to respond, raising concerns about the legality and ethics of the request. But Trump and Musk are pushing the move forward, with the president even hinting that he will visit Fort Knox to check the U.S. gold reserves: “Maybe someone stole the gold — tons of gold,” he said.
The move has sparked strong reactions within the administration, with many officials warning of a major crisis among federal employees. It remains unclear what will happen to those who refuse to respond, but one thing is certain: the Trump administration seems determined to “purge” the government of those deemed unnecessary.
