Elon Musk wants to get at civil servants: Anyone who doesn't reply to this email will be fired!
By Julia Naue and Marc Kalpidis
Washington (USA) - Tech billionaire Elon Musk (53) is continuing his radical layoff policy in US government agencies. In line with the instructions of US President Donald Trump (78), all federal employees will soon receive an email, he wrote on his X platform.
They would be asked to explain what they had done in the previous week. "Failure to respond will be treated as dismissal," he threatened.
The union of government employees (AFGE) reacted with shock and immediately announced that it would legally challenge "unlawful terminations of our members and federal employees across the country". The actions of Musk and the Trump administration once again show "their sheer contempt" for civil servants and their important work.
It is "cruel and disrespectful" to force public servants to justify themselves to "this out-of-touch, privileged, unelected billionaire who has never done a single hour of honest service to the state in his entire life," AFGE chief Everett Kelley scolded.
Trump has tasked Musk with cutting government spending, giving him a virtually free hand.
Trump sets a radical course when it comes to cutting red tape
A committee called DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency), which is attached to the White House, was formed for this purpose. Musk is driving forward the restructuring of the state apparatus in Trump's name - including mass redundancies.
At a conference of the American right near the capital Washington, Trump said: "We are firing all unnecessary, incompetent and corrupt bureaucrats from the federal workforce. That's what we're doing." He said he wanted to keep "the best people", not the "worst".