“Thank you for responding to this email with approximately five chip entries describing what you accomplished last week and put your manager in copy”. Here is what an email sent to the staff of several federal agencies and ministries, consulted by AFP. The Trump administration began sending a second email to more than two million federal officials in which it requires them to provide a list of tasks accomplished recently. A deadline set for Monday March 3 11:59 p.m. (Tuesday March 4 05:59 am, GMT schedule) to answer it is also given and this justification becomes weekly for civil servants.
The initiative comes a week after a similar email, sent under the leadership of Elon Musk, when Republican President Donald Trump and his multimillionaire ally saber in state staff. This first email had caused some confusion in the American administration. Some agency ministers and directors have initiated their workforce not to comply with the demand, awaiting additional instructions.
“All my activities are sensitive”
Elon Musk had enjoined federal officials last week to respond to this first email to justify their tasks accomplished. “The absence of an answer” before the deadline would be considered as a “resignation”, added the boss of Tesla and SpaceX. The republican president had defended the richest man’s initiative in the world and had described it as “brilliant”, because according to him if the civil servants do not answer, “it most likely means that they do not exist or do not work”.
Several ministries – including led by faithful from Donald Trump – had however advised civil servants not to respond, at least in the immediate, in view of the risk of leakage of classified information Secret -Defense. The second email sent on Friday specifies that civil servants whose missions are “classified confidential or sensitive” will simply be able to answer: “all my activities are sensitive.”
“The president clearly indicated that (responding) was compulsory for the executive power,” wrote Elon Musk on X on Saturday morning. “Anyone working on classified or sensitive subjects is always required to respond if they receive the email, but can simply answer that their work is sensitive,” added Tesla and SpaceX boss, named at the head of a commission with government efficiency (DOGE), responsible for slashing in public spending, even if he does not officially direct the Dogey according to the White House.
Dismissals that continue
The Trump administration recently dismissed around 20 % of employees working in the office of the Ministry of Internal Security, which has around 45 people and which focuses on terrorism prevention programs, specifies THE Washington Post. Among the last officials to be dismissed are at least 85 workers in the Division of Technological Transformation Services of the General Services Administration, the Washington Post.
The dismissal provided for by the Ministry of Defense of 5,400 employees in probationary period was temporarily delayed after a decision of a federal court blocking such dismissals in the Pentagon and in other agencies. The Pentagon warned that it ultimately envisaged to remove 5 to 8 % of its civil workforce, the total of which is more than 900,000 civilian employees throughout the ministry.