Elon Musk defends productiveness electronic mail as ‘pulse test’ on federal staff: ‘Are they actual, are they alive, can they write emails?’
Elon Musk addressed issues over final week’s controversial federal employee productiveness electronic mail, insisting the directive was not a efficiency assessment however a fundamental test for indicators of life.
“I believe that electronic mail was maybe interpreted as a efficiency assessment, however truly it was a pulse test assessment. Do you’ve got a pulse?” Musk mentioned throughout a Cupboard assembly Wednesday. “And in case you have a pulse and two neurons, you can reply to an electronic mail.”
The request, despatched in coordination with the Workplace of Personnel Administration, requested over 1 million federal workers to submit a bullet-point listing of their weekly work accomplishments. Musk argued that the train was a vital step to uncover potential fraud inside the authorities payroll.
“However what we are attempting to unravel is, we predict there are a selection of individuals on the federal government payroll who’re lifeless, which might be why they can not reply,” Musk mentioned. “And a few people who find themselves not actual individuals … like they’re fictional people gathering a paycheck. Nicely, any person is gathering paychecks on a fictional particular person.”
Musk, serving as a particular advisor to President Trump, tied the initiative to his broader mission of chopping authorities waste.
“We merely can not maintain a rustic on $2 trillion deficits,” Musk warned, emphasizing that the US is spending extra on curiosity funds than on the Division of Protection. “If this continues, the nation will go bankrupt. It is not an elective factor.”
Regardless of acknowledging the extreme scrutiny he has confronted, Musk remained assured that DOGE—the Division of Authorities Effectivity—may obtain $1 trillion in financial savings.
“We do want to maneuver shortly,” Musk mentioned. “If we’re to attain $1 trillion deficit discount in monetary 12 months 2026, it requires saving $4 billion per day daily from now by way of the tip of September. However we are able to do it. And we are going to do it.”
