Trump Administration, Breaking With Musk’s Directive, Says Replying to His Email Is Voluntary

It seems that Elon Musk’s agitation throughout a month through the federal bureaucracy has met her first real test, as some of the senior loyalists of President Trump categorically reject the request of billionaire whose employees justify their jobs or are expelled with brief procedures.

By Monday, just 48 hours after an email from Mr. Musk with the topic line, “What did you do last week?” It fell in millions of federal workers, employees announced the “request” to be voluntary even when Mr. Musk renewed his request.

For the first time since the beginning of Mr. Trump’s return to power, government employees seemed to be at least at least an ambush in their war with the richest man in the world. Even if the chain of events that escalate-rises is contradictory to Mr. Musk, the president’s comments and email messages from the agency’s heads-left many of them confused.

After Email to Mr. Musk, many agencies quickly sent e -mail messages telling their employees that they do not need to provide the five bullets around their activity that he wants.

“There are no HHS employees for HHS employees to respond to OPM, and there is no effect on your job with the agency if you choose not to respond,” said an email sent to employees at the Ministry of Health and Humanitarian Services, referring to the agency that sent the request of the master Musk, Personnel Management Office.

The Ministry of Health and Humanitarian Services added that anyone who wants to respond must “assume that what you write will read by the malicious foreign actors and adapt your response accordingly.”

At the same time that the employees were informed that the response was no longer necessary, Mr. Trump weighed during a visit with President Emmanuel Macron from “almost launching” or “launched”.

Late Monday evening, Mr. Musk presented another development on his social media website.

Mr. Musk wrote: “Taking into account the appreciation authority of the president, they will be given another chance,” Mr. Musk wrote. “Failure to respond for the second time will lead to termination.”

“The email order was completely trivial, as the criterion for passing the test was to write some words and click on sending!” He said in another post. “However, many people have failed even in this uncommon test, which their managers urged in some cases. Have you ever seen such lack of efficiency and contempt for how to spend your taxes?”

Until the end of this week, Senior officials in Mr. Trump adopted the call of Mr. Musk to a smaller and more efficient government, free of what Republicans call “wake up”. Thousands of employees were expelled or placed on vacation. Entire agencies, such as the United States Agency for International Development, were closed. The workers were informed of a distance to return to the office or shoot.

But the response to the weekend e -mail indicates that in reality there may be limits for the extent of Mr. Musk, who behaves on behalf of Mr. Trump as a newly established ministry of government efficiency, on bureaucracy.

Through the executive wings of federal agencies, MUSK email message raised concerns about grass and security. The message broke the cabinet of Mr. Trump, as the leaders of some departments order their employees to comply with and others direct workers to ignore the threat.

The chiefs of staff and heads of employees in national security and intelligence agencies spent Saturday and Sunday in an attempt to develop a coordinated response, according to a senior American official who is familiar with discussions. The result of this effort began when Cash Patel, the FBI director of Mr. Trump, told the office employees to “stop any responses” to directing musk.

The official, who asked not to be recognized in order to discuss internal deliberations, said that there is some concern that Mr. Musk may explode during the weekend on the social media platform. The official said that the weekend activity added to the anger of Mr. Musk among the cabinet secretaries and heads of agencies to interfere in their departments.

The responses from many department heads showed that they felt insulting the idea that one of the outside was trying to take over the decisions of their employees. Other responses indicated that the heads of agencies were concerned that employees might reveal secret or even classified information in their responses to Mr. Musk.

At the CIA, senior officials did not submit a public statement, but some people in the agency were quietly taught by not responding to Mr. Musk’s mail in the hope that the problem will disappear, according to a person familiar with the decision.

White House officials have denied that there was any impact on Mr. Musk’s authority, or even any dispute between senior officials in the president throughout the government.

“Everyone is working together as a unified team towards President Trump,” said Caroline Levitt, the White House press secretary. “Any idea about the opposite is completely wrong.”

A senior White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the internal deliberations, said that the efforts made by Mr. Musk and Douj were “exactly the point” even if they prepared some feathers inside the administration.

However, the injury to the direction left many 2.3 million federal workers in the country that should not be done – even after reassurance on Monday from the employee management office.

Although the TV devices played the comments of Mr. Trump, which Mr. Musk praised, the Ministry of Conventions informed the agencies that the response to MUSK e -mail is now “voluntary” and that the failure to respond will not be considered a resignation, as Mr. Musk pointed out.

The opposition between the highest ranks in the administration of Mr. Trump was rare for the president whose demand for absolute loyalty led to dramatic executive measures by his subordinates, all of which act in the locking step to pay quickly via Mr. Trump’s agenda.

During the weekend, many senior officials challenged Mr. Musk and urged their employees to “stop” or “not respond” to the demand for a description of five things they made in the previous week. All employees in the sections of the state, defense, energy, internal security and justice were categorically said not to comply.

“Currently, the Ministry of Energy employees are asked to stop any direct response to the OPM email,” said Energy Minister Chris Wright in an email on the weekend. An official at the Supreme Ministry of Foreign Affairs wrote, “There is no employee obligated to report his activities outside the department’s leadership chain.”

Meanwhile, the leaders of the president who chose manually in the Treasury, the Public Services Department, the Ministry of Transport and the Office of the Administration and Budget, asked to follow the directives of Mr. Musk at the weekend. “You were sent to respond to this message before the deadline,” said an email to the Treasury.

The division between the advisers came just two days before the appointment of Mr. Trump to hold his first meeting in the cabinet during his second term at the White House on Wednesday. Eight years ago, his first meeting in the Council of Ministers turned into a session of praise for Mr. Trump, where his senior assistants were filled, as one of them said, “the blessing” of work with the president.

It can still happen again on Wednesday. People have risen in the current orbit of Mr. Trump over and over his praise in recent weeks. After a meeting with Russian officials last week, Foreign Minister Marco Rubio repeatedly said that “Trump is the only leader who can bring peace to Ukraine.”

NGOs Madeleine and Nicholas Nehmes It contributed to the reports from Washington.