Several federal agencies of the United States told their employees that they do not immediately respond to a lawsuit from President Donald Trump's advisor, Elon Musk, to list their achievements of the last week or will be fired, while a chaotic campaign progresses to eliminate the bureaucracy.
Musk's demand that officials present a summary of his work before 23:59 East time (0459 GMT) has opened fissures in the Trump administration.
Agencies such as the Administration for Drug Control and the Federal Communications Commission have told employees they comply with. But many others, including defense, national security, education, trade and energy departments have ordered workers who do not respond.
The Department of Health and Human Services told their workers to cooperate, but later asked them not to do so while finding out how to “better fulfill the intention” of the unusual directive of Musk.
The workers of the Consumer Financial Protection Office also received Musk email, although they had already been ordered to stop working.
Musk warned the federal workers to comply, writing in a publication on Monday morning in their social network X: “Those who do not take this email seriously will soon be promoting their career elsewhere.”
He also said in a separate publication that the federal personnel who have not yet returned to work in their offices after Trump decree last month would be put on administrative permission from this week.
Musk, the richest person in the world, has led a personnel reduction campaign that has fired more than 20,000 workers and has offered bailouts to another 75,000 in broad sectors of the public administration, which has 2.3 million officials, From bank regulators to parks guards.
In some cases, the government has rushed to hire workers who perform critical functions, such as nuclear weapons and response to avian flu. The reduction of personnel has also caused a wave of demands, even by union groups.
The Trump administration said at the last minute of Sunday that it would fire 1,600 workers from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and would bring almost all the remaining personnel in leave. Trump has already paralyzed almost all the financing and operations of the agency, plunging into chaos the global efforts of humanitarian aid.
Musk's job cut has also extended to the American economy in general, forcing companies that do business with the government to fire their own workers and postpone payments to suppliers.
Musk has delighted in chaos, even brandishing a chainsaw at a conservative political conference last week.