‘What did you do last week?’: Elon Musk’s DOGE sends brutal email ultimatum to government workers

Elon Musk has issued a chilling ultimatum to the millions of workers left in government as he made a wild claim which critics say is simply not true.

US civil servants who have survived several brutal rounds of mass sackings now have to justify what they did last week — or risk joining the growing slush pile of unemployed workers.

In the latest tactic to cut down on the government’s workforce, Elon Musk has demanded that federal staffers document in detail what they did last week to help him decide who should stay and who should go.

And if they fail to report in, that will trigger an automatic resignation.

“What did you do last week?” was the subject line of the alarming email workers received in their inbox on Saturday local time, going on to reply to the email with five bullet points of achievements over the past five days.

At time of writing, roughly three per cent of America’s 2.3 million-strong civil servant workforce has been slashed under Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, abbreviated to DOGE.

Critics have previously called out President Trump for giving Mr Musk near “unrivalled” power to reduce and even shut down government departments as he sees fit.

On Saturday afternoon local time, Mr Musk posted the ultimatum to workers on his own platform, X.

“Consistent with President @realDonaldTrump’s instructions, all federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week,” he wrote.

“Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.”

The brutal email workers received.

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.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 22, 2025

On Saturday local time, President Trump also took the opportunity to cheer on Mr Musk’s efforts at auditing the US government, posting on his own platform, Truth Social.

He also said he would like to see DOGE “get more aggressive” and added: “Remember, we have a country to save, but ultimately, to make greater than before”.

The DOGE is claiming that already they have $55 billion from taxpayer money from the cuts, lease cancellations and ending longstanding contracts.

Mr Trump sees the figures as a resounding success, even going so far as to say he might mail checks to all Americans to in a “DOGE dividend” to share in the savings.

However, many have poured water on the claims.

The New York Times reported that the maths that got the DOGE to arrive at the $55 billion number is “marred with accounting errors”.

One of those errors inflated the totals by billions of dollars, the publication claimed.

The DOGE also reportedly took credit for ending contracts, when in actuality, many of these contracts were shut down during the Biden administration.

CBS News also revealed that the DOGE had triple-counted the savings it made from cancelling a $655 million contract for the United States Agency for International Development.

On its website keeping track of money saved, it had duplicating this listening three times.

Musk leads the efforts under the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), and the thousands of sacked workers are not happy. Picture: Jason Redmond / AFP

Tech billionaire Elon Musk has been tapped by President Donald Trump to lead federal cost-cutting efforts. He said the United States would go "bankrupt" without budget cuts. Picture: Jim Watson / AFP

So far, 85,000 workers have been slashed under Musk’s DOGE regime.

Of those, 75,000 opted out voluntarily under a take-it-or-leave-it buyout offer which expired last week.

Afterwards, a further 10,000 employees were sacked, most of them on probation, in the latest intense round of sackings.

Mr Trump has also announced that government workers are expected in the office full-time, causing many staffers to question whether this is another tactic to make more people quit.

Last week, news.com.au reported that civil servants were beside themselves as they felt “betrayed” by their country, not just because they had lost their jobs but also because they were being made out that they were “enemies of the people”.

Nick Gioia, who lost his job at the USDA’s Economic Research Service last week, told USA Today people were “cheering on” his unemployment and he was being made to seem “lazy, incompetent, low productivity”.

“What’s frustrating is that this administration has portrayed people like myself as the enemy to the American people,” he added.

Government departments are expected to be gutted in coming weeks, raising concern about essential services.

Just a month after the devastating Los Angeles wildfires, federal programs have paused hiring seasonal firefighters and stopped implementing preventive measures like removing dead wood from forests.

Reports also indicate that the Internal Revenue Service will lay off thousands of probationary workers despite being in the middle of the USA’s tax season.

Originally published as ‘What did you do last week?’: Elon Musk’s DOGE sends brutal email ultimatum to government workers