The head of DOGE said there are examples of ‘non-existent people’ or ‘dead people’ being used to collect federal paychecks.
Head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Elon Musk, said Sunday that an email to federal employees asking them to report their accomplishments over the past week is designed to root out fraud from people who aren’t working.
Hundreds of thousands of federal workers were given about 48 hours to provide a response to the email. The deadline to reply is listed as Monday at 11:59 p.m. local time, although the email did not include the same warning that Musk had issued in a separate social media post from Musk.
“Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation,” Musk wrote in a Saturday post on X.
Musk wrote on Sunday morning in a post: “The reason this matters is that a significant number of people who are supposed to be working for the government are doing so little work that they are not checking their email at all!” Musk, an adviser to President Donald Trump, was reacting to a post about his email.
“In some cases, we believe non-existent people or the identities of dead people are being used to collect paychecks,” Musk also said. “In other words, there is outright fraud.”
Earlier on Sunday, Musk said that workers who provide “good responses” may receive promotions.
McLaurine Pinover, a spokesperson at the Office of Personnel Management, confirmed Musk’s directive and said that individual agencies will “determine any next steps.”
Meanwhile, in a message to employees on Saturday night, federal court officials instructed recipients not to respond after some had received the email.
“We understand that some judges and judiciary staff have received an email … directing the recipient to reply with 5 accomplishments from the prior week. Please be advised that this email did not originate from the Judiciary or the Administrative Office and we suggest that no action be taken,” judiciary officials wrote.
Some federal agencies also told their employees that they did not have to comply if they received Musk’s message.
“The State Department will respond on behalf of the Department. No employee is obligated to report their activities outside of their Department chain of command,” according to an email from Tibor Nagy, acting undersecretary for management.
The Epoch Times reached out the the State Department on Sunday for more information.
