Federal employees ordered not to answer DOGE email demand

Several government agencies over the weekend ordered their employees not to respond to an email from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management that demanded workers explain what they accomplished last week. The Department of Defense said it would conduct its own personnel reviews. The FBI, NSA, and State Department apparently also told employees not to respond to the email, according to reports by NBC, GovExec, and The New York Times. The Office of Personnel Management sent the email as part of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, initiative to cut the federal workforce. Musk announced the email in a Saturday afternoon X post, saying failure to respond would be taken as a resignation. 

Several groups of government employees currently suing the Office of Personnel Management for its firing procedures added the email to their complaint, saying it violates the Administrative Procedure Act.

What else did DOGE work on over the weekend? DOGE and the Trump administration on Sunday also announced that, across the globe, they were placing most of the staffers of U.S. Agency for International Development on paid administrative leave. They are also firing at least 1,600 U.S.-based employees of USAID, according to the Associated Press. The agency is continuing critical operations, like coordinating overseas staffers’ travel home, with a core team of about 600 employees.

The firings came after a monthlong struggle to dismantle the agency, which Trump contends frequently operates counter to American interests. A federal judge temporarily blocked Trump’s freeze on all foreign assistance. But U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee, cleared the way for the USAID firings on Friday by dissolving a temporary restraining order on the plan and rejecting employees’ pleas for a preliminary injunction. Nichols said the Trump administration had provided sufficient assurance that the firings wouldn’t significantly endanger overseas employees or national security.