Featured Image Credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images
Topics: Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Politics, US News
Poppy Bilderbeck
Topics: Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Politics, US News
A screenshot of White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt's response to Elon Musk's email to all federal workers has been shared online.
On Saturday (February 22), Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) 'consistent wither President Donald Trump's instructions' fired off an email to all federal employees demanding they outline five tasks they've completed in the last week, warning if they didn't their lack of response would be taken as a resignation.
Titled 'HR,' the subject line read: "What did you do last week?"
The email continued "Please reply to this email with approx. 5 bullets of what you accomplished last week and cc your manager."
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Staff were asked not to include links, attachments or classified information and Musk added in a post to Twitter: "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."
The email sparked backlash, particularly given its deadline of 11:59pm on Monday (February 24), and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has since spoken out about the email, a screenshot of her own response to it having been shared online.
On Tuesday, Leavitt confirmed she'd replied to the email and fired it off to political consultant and the current White House Deputy Chief of Staff, Taylor Budowich.
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The email reads: "Hello Taylor. In an effort of transparency and accountability, I am pleased to inform you of five tasks that I completed last week, though the list of everything that I completed is much longer. See below."
Her five bullet points? Well...
Leavitt added: "P.S. I am so grateful to have a job and work hard on behalf of the American taxpayers, who fund my salary. This email took me two minutes to draft. Thank you."
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The White House press secretary then doubled down on her comments during a press conference.
She said: "I can announce that we’ve had more than one million workers who have chosen to participate in this very simple task of, again, sending five bullet points to your direct supervisor or manager."
Leavitt argued, as quoted by ABC News: "All federal workers should we working at the same pace that President Trump is working and moving.
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"We have a country to save, and we want this federal government to be responsive to the needs of the American people who re-elected this president to have historic, massive reform. And that's what the intention of this idea is."
Musk later took to Twitter on February 24 to say federal workers would be given 'another chance' to reply but 'failure to response a second time [would] result in termination'.