Billionaire Elon Musk has seemingly relished his opportunity to lead the Department of Government Efficiency, which has already reportedly rooted out billions of dollars in federal waste:
Have you seen the DOGE clock?
I must admit, I never thought I would…
:-{)} pic.twitter.com/R63bVQwp9J— Lobo Tiggre (@duediligenceguy) February 22, 2025
Most recently, Musk implanted a new policy requiring all federal employees to submit a report briefly describing what they accomplished over the past week.
He announced the new requirement via X on Saturday:
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
After receiving a mix of supportive and critical responses from other users, Musk soon clarified just how basic these emails could be in order to prove some level of workplace productivity and competency.
As Fox News reported:
Later on Saturday, Musk said the report should take under five minutes for employees to write. The deadline to respond to the email is 11:59 p.m. Monday.
ADVERTISEMENT“To be clear, the bar is very low here. An email with some bullet points that make any sense at all is acceptable! Should take less than 5 mins to write,” Musk wrote on X.
In another post, Musk responded to the White House’s Rapid Response account in which it laid out what the administration has done in the last week, which included Trump signing executive orders to expand access to in vitro fertilization (IVF) and to end benefits for illegal immigrants.
“That would be a very impressive and long list indeed for you!” Musk responded.
“However, the passing grade is literally just ‘Can you send an email with words that make any sense at all?'” he continued. “It’s a low bar.”
More than a few pundits argued that the backlash to the policy is likely coming from those with do-nothing federal jobs who can’t defend their taxpayer-funded paychecks:
The problem isn't really the time it takes to write it, it's the idea that a government worker should have to actually do something useful to justify getting a salary from the taxpayers. Liberals find that idea terrifying.
— John Hawkins (@johnhawkinsrwn) February 23, 2025
Any responsible person, that makes an HONEST living, already has a list of all of the things they need to accomplish at work each week.
The federal government is the ideal work environment for grifters and people with poor work ethics.
Audit the hell out them all.
— usafmedic21 (@bUSAFmedic21) February 23, 2025
Musk’s move was announced shortly after Trump praised his efforts at DOGE but signaled a desire to see even more progress, as reported by The Hill:
President Trump suggested in a new post that tech billionaire Elon Musk,one of his closest allies, needs to be “more aggressive” — presumably referring to his efforts to slash spending, downsize the federal workforce and eviscerate fraud via the newly-formed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
“ELON IS DOING A GREAT JOB, BUT I WOULD LIKE TO SEE HIM GET MORE AGGRESSIVE,” Trump wrote Saturday in a post on Truth Social. “REMEMBER, WE HAVE A COUNTRY TO SAVE, BUT ULTIMATELY, TO MAKE GREATER THAN EVER BEFORE. MAGA!”
ADVERTISEMENTThe billionaire replied to Trump’s subsequent post on social platform X: “Will do, Mr. President.”
During a recent interview with Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity, Trump and Musk discussed the scope of this ambitious project:
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