U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference with Elon Musk in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., on May 30, 2025. Credit – Allison Robbert—Getty Images
The Trump Administration has axed a controversial program introduced by Elon Musk during his time serving as the lead of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has announced that federal employees will no longer be required to send a “5 things” email at the end of each working week, during which they were expected to summarize their work and list five things they accomplished.
“We communicated with agency HR leads that OPM was no longer going to manage the ‘five things’ process nor utilize it internally,” said OPM Director Scott Kupor in a statement the White House shared with TIME on Wednesday morning.
“At OPM, we believe that managers are accountable to staying informed about what their team members are working on and have many other existing tools to do so.”
OPM has been responsible for implementing Musk’s email requirement since its introduction in February, but the now-axed program has long been the subject of contention across various federal agencies and high-ranking officials. It was not enforced across the board.
Musk—who announced he was stepping down from his DOGE role in late May, before engaging in a public feud with his one-time ally, President Donald Trump—was tasked with slashing federal spending, gutting numerous federal agencies, and introducing efficient workflow methods.
Here’s a look at the “5 things” email instruction and the backlash that ensued.
When did Elon Musk introduce the workflow-efficiency emails?
Tesla CEO and X owner Musk announced his email requirement in February, via social media.
“All federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week,” said Musk on X, saying that the instruction was consistent with Trump’s directive.
Musk added that “failure to respond will be taken as a resignation,” however this threat to jobs was notably absent from the instruction email that was sent to federal employees.
The email—which boasted the subject line “What did you do last week?”—was sent from the OPM to workers in a number of government departments, including the FBI, the State Department, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Environmental Protection Agency, the Veterans Affairs Department, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).
“Please reply to this email with approx. 5 bullets of what you accomplished this week and cc your manager,” the email sent on Feb. 22 reportedly read, telling employees to respond by midnight on the approaching Monday.
Days later, after much backlash, Musk gave employees a “second chance” to send their emails if they did not send a list of five accomplishments the first time round.
Read More: Elon Musk Draws Ire Telling Federal Employees to Justify Their Jobs Over Email or Resign
How did federal employees, lawmakers, and others respond?
Some agencies ordered employees to comply with the instruction, in part, but to send the email to their “first-line supervisors” instead. The Department of Commerce reportedly issued a notice to its workforce in line with this, saying: “In compliance with that email, please ensure you provide 5 bullet points relating to your activities last week.”
However, other departments said that there was no requirement to respond.
“There is no HHS expectation that HHS employees respond to OPM and there is no impact to your employment with the agency if you choose not to respond,” the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) employees were told, according to a note obtained by the Washington Post.
The Department of Defense also advised its workforce to “pause” any response to the OPM.
“The Department of Defense is responsible for reviewing the performance of its personnel and it will conduct any review in accordance with its own precludes,” read an official statement.
FBI Director Kash Patel told FBI employees in an email to “pause any responses” to Musk’s directive.
“The FBI, through the Office of the Director, is in charge of all our review processes, and will conduct reviews in accordance with FBI procedures,” the message from Patel reportedly read.
Meanwhile, lawmakers across party aisles spoke out against the initiative.
Speaking on CBS’ Face the Nation shortly after the initial email was sent out, Utah Republican Sen. John Curtis said: “If I could say one thing to Elon Musk, it’s please put a dose of compassion in this. These are real people, real lives, mortgages. It’s a false narrative to say we have to cut and we have to be cruel to do it.”
Appearing on the same show, Maryland Democrat Sen. Chris Van Hollen said: “There’s no article in the Constitution that gives Elon Musk that authority.”
Others were more in favour of the move.
Republican Rep. Mike Lawler of New York said on ABC’s This Week: “There’s no question, as the Department of Government Efficiency moves ahead, what they are seeking to do is ensure that every agency and department is effectively and efficiently doing their job.”
“The task at hand for Elon Musk and DOGE, at the direction of President Trump, is to find efficiencies and savings, and make sure that our federal workforce is doing their jobs.”
Elsewhere, Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), released a statement against the initiative.
“It is cruel and disrespectful to hundreds of thousands of veterans who are wearing their second uniform in the civil service to be forced to justify their job duties to this out-of-touch, privileged, unelected billionaire,” Kelley said.
Read More: Musk Reignites Row Over Trump’s ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ as Senate Republicans Advance It: ‘Utterly Insane and Destructive’
How did Musk and Trump react to the controversy?
In response to the lack of enforcement from some federal agencies, Musk appeared frustrated.
Musk said that the email responses should take “less than 5 mins” and that many “good responses” from employees had already been received just one day after his instruction was sent out. “These are the people who should be considered for promotion,” he argued.
“The email request was utterly trivial, as the standard for passing the test was to type some words and press send! Yet so many failed even that inane test, urged on in some cases by their managers,” he continued, venting on X.
“Have you ever witnessed such incompetence and contempt for how your taxes are being spent?” Musk asked his American followers.
The former DOGE head responded to comments from House Speaker Mike Johnson, who said it was not unreasonable for public servants to justify their work. “Just applying the same standards to public vs private workforce. Fair rules for all,” said Musk.
Trump staunchly defended Musk’s push for work-efficiency emails, calling the move “genius.” He argued that some federal employees on the payroll were not replying because “they don’t even exist.”
The President also said that departments that did not comply with the email instruction did so “in a friendly manner,” including the FBI where employees were working on “confidential” items.
“They don’t mean that in any way combatively with Elon. They’re just saying there are some people that you don’t want to really have them tell you what they’re working on [the] last week,” he said.
Contact us at letters@time.com.
