Elon Musk, the billionaire advisor responsible for significantly reducing the U.S. government, is scheduled to sit in on President Donald Trump’s first cabinet meeting on Wednesday as uncertainty surrounds his initiative to dismiss federal employees.
This meeting is taking place during a power struggle between Musk, Trump, and government officials as Musk’s authority faces its initial challenge.
Although Musk is not a member of the cabinet, he has exerted more influence than anyone else in Trump’s early days in office.
His email mandate requiring all federal employees to document their achievements or risk job loss has thrown the government into disarray, as some agencies instructed their personnel to adhere to his request while others advised them to disregard it.
Even after the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the governing body overseeing the federal workforce, informed employees that they were not required to respond to Musk’s email, Trump and his supporters seemed to indicate that compliance might be in workers’ best interest.
Musk stated on Saturday that federal employees needed to list five tasks they completed during the week or face dismissal, imposing a strict 48-hour window for responses via email.
On Tuesday, Musk continued to push via social media for workers to reply. He appeared to have support from Trump, who told reporters that the email request was “somewhat voluntary,” though added that failing to respond could result in termination.
When questioned on Tuesday about whether Musk’s threat would be enforced, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump would leave it to cabinet secretaries to guide their respective teams.
Some cabinet members, like Kelly Loeffler, head of the Small Business Administration, endorsed Musk’s request.
“We just want to know: Are there people there doing their jobs? And again, the bar is so low it’s laughable,” Loeffler stated during a Fox News interview on Tuesday.
Conversely, other Trump loyalists, such as Kash Patel, the newly appointed FBI chief, advised their staff to refrain from responding.
As this back-and-forth unfolded, 21 employees resigned from Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency in protest on Tuesday.
“We will not use our skills as technologists to compromise core government systems, endanger Americans’ sensitive data, or dismantle critical public services,” the employees expressed in a resignation statement shared online.
Musk’s downsizing campaign has already terminated over 20,000 employees, with an additional 75,000 taking buyouts, and the pace of cuts continued to increase on Tuesday. There are approximately 2.3 million civilian federal employees.
Most of the individuals let go had been in their positions for less than a year, making it simpler to dismiss them under civil service regulations. However, there were indications that DOGE was now focusing on more permanent staff.
Executives at the Internal Revenue Service have been warned to prepare for another round of workforce reductions beyond the nearly 12,000 employees already scheduled for termination, according to two individuals familiar with the situation, concerning roughly 7,000 probationary employees facing dismissal and 5,000 taking buyouts. The current cuts represent over 10% of the agency’s workforce.
On Tuesday, the Interior Department received a notice from OPM advising that divisions like the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Bureau of Indian Affairs should strategize for workforce reductions between 10% and 40%, as reported by an Interior source to Reuters.
See more: The high Unemployment Rates in Europe
Throughout Tuesday, Musk expressed his frustration about federal judges who have intervened to prevent his team from gaining access to sensitive systems and data within the Treasury Department, Education Department, and the Office of Personnel Management, and from compelling the administration to release frozen foreign aid funds.
