Federal Workers Face Second Musk Deadline To Explain Their Work Last Week

Federal employees face a midnight deadline to comply with Elon Musk 's second demand for reports on their recent accomplishments, a request that has become a flashpoint within the government workforce.

Musk and President Donald Trump have suggested that employees who don't comply could get fired. They've also described the requirement - a list of five things that each person did last week - as an unobjectionable way to increase accountability within a sprawling bureaucracy.

But for many workers, the request has been a source of anxiety and confusion as the new administration tightens its grip on the federal government. Some agencies are still telling their workforces not to respond or to limit what they say in response, just as they did after Musk's first request last month.

Judging by instructions that have circulated in recent days, the workforce will face a standing request for lists of accomplishments every Monday. There are roughly 2.4 million federal workers excluding active-duty military and postal workers, 80 of whom are based outside of the Washington, D.C. metro area.

At the Food and Drug Administration , employees received three emails Monday on the topic - the first at about 6:45 a.m. Eastern letting them know about the request, the second before 8 a.m. telling them to await guidance, and the third after 11:30 a.m. explaining how they should respond.