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Amid pushback, Musk threatens federal workers with sacking if they fail to reply to email
Hello and welcome to our rolling US politics coverage:
The fallout from Musk’s demand for government workers to justify their work in a bullet-point list continues.
The US Office of Personnel Management (OPM), which manages the federal workforce, walked back on an ultimatum issued by Elon Musk at the weekend that would have forced its workers to resign if they did not submit the requested list of their recent accomplishments.
It marks one of the first signs of internal pushback to the Tesla billionaire’s campaign to downsize the federal workforce.
The OPM announced that responding to Musk’s email was not mandatory and that failing to respond by midnight on Monday would not be considered a resignation, as Musk had warned.
Musk, however, continued to insist that workers will be expected to respond or they would lose their jobs.
“Subject to the discretion of the president, they will be given another chance. Failure to respond a second time will result in termination,” Musk said on Monday afternoon.
Earlier in the day Donald Trump had spoken in support of the demand
“By asking the question, tell us what you did this week, what he’s doing is saying, are you actually working?” the president said.
But the ultimatum had already run into resistance with the FBI, the state department and the Pentagon among the agencies instructing employees not to answer the message. Other department heads advised staff to comply, while some told workers to wait for further guidance before responding.
Attorneys for federal workers said in a lawsuit Musk had violated the law with his weekend demand. An updated lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in California and was provided to the Associated Press, is trying to block mass layoffs.
In other developments:
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Donald Trump said Vladimir Putin would accept European peacekeepers in Ukraine as part of a potential deal to end the three-year war. Trump was speaking alongside French president Emmanuel Macron at the White House as the leaders sought to smooth over a transatlantic rift to achieve peace.
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The Trump-Macron meeting came as the US voted against a United Nations resolution condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, siding with countries such as North Korea, Belarus and Sudan over European allies.
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Trump said the US and Ukraine are “very close” to coming to terms on a rare earth minerals agreement, in comments made during a visit from French president Emmanuel Macron amid European concerns over the US position on Ukraine.
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A federal judge on Monday denied a request by the Associated Press to immediately restore full access to presidential events for the news agency’s journalists, but said the issue required more exploration before ruling. The Trump administration barred the outlet earlier this month for continuing to refer to the Gulf of Mexico in its coverage after the president renamed it the “Gulf of America”.
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A federal judge has blocked the government downsizing team Doge from accessing sensitive data maintained by the US education department and the US office of personnel management. US district judge Deborah Boardman in Greenbelt, Maryland issued the temporary restraining order at the behest of a coalition of labour unions.
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A federal judge has extended protections for trans women in prison. The judge, who blocked the Federal Bureau of Prisons from carrying out Donald Trump’s executive order that would have transferred three incarcerated trans women into men’s facilities earlier this month, has extended protections for nine additional women.
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A federal judge blocked immigration agents from conducting enforcement operations in houses of worship for some religious groups, the Associated Press reported. US district judge Theodore Chang found that the Trump administration policy could violate their religious freedom and should be blocked while a lawsuit challenging it plays out.
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Former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has launched his campaign for Ohio governor.
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Kremlin says Russia has rare earth metals the US needs and is open to cooperation
The Kremlin said on Tuesday that Russia had lots of rare earth metal deposits and that it was open to doing deals to develop them after President Vladimir Putin held out the possibility of such collaboration with the United States.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said:
The Americans need rare earth metals. We have a lot of them.
We have our own plans to develop strategic resources, but there are quite broad prospects for cooperation here.
Putin told state TV on Monday that Russia was open to joint projects with American partners - including government and the private sector - under a future Russia-US economic deal, Reuters reports.
US president Donald Trump has pledged that “major economic development transactions with Russia” would take place.
Peskov said there was still a lot of work to be done to normalise relations between Moscow and Washington before any economic deals could be struck.
“Next on the agenda is the issue of resolving the Ukrainian crisis”, he said. “And then, especially since the Americans themselves have also spoken about it, it will be time to consider possible projects related to trade, economic and investment cooperation.”
Peskov added: “When there comes, let’s say, a moment of political will, we will be open to this (cooperation on rare earth metals),”
Former defense secretary Chuck Hagel and other former US national security officials on Tuesday warned that China was outpacing the US in critical technology fields and urged Congress to increase funding for federal scientific research.
The appeal comes a week after the National Science Foundation (NSF), which funds science research, fired 170 people in response to President Donald Trump’s order to reduce the federal workforce.
An NSF spokesman declined to comment on reports that hundreds more layoffs were possible and that the agency’s budget could be slashed by billions.
The ex-officials want Congress to provide at least $16 billion authorised for the NSF in the fiscal year 2025, according to a letter seen by Reuters which was addressed to Trump, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, and Mike Johnson, speaker of the US House of Representatives.
“China is making significant strategic investments in basic and applied research and positioning the country to outpace us in critical areas that could determine the outcome of future conflicts,” the letter said. “This is a race that we cannot afford to lose.”
Amid pushback, Musk threatens federal workers with sacking if they fail to reply to email
Hello and welcome to our rolling US politics coverage:
The fallout from Musk’s demand for government workers to justify their work in a bullet-point list continues.
The US Office of Personnel Management (OPM), which manages the federal workforce, walked back on an ultimatum issued by Elon Musk at the weekend that would have forced its workers to resign if they did not submit the requested list of their recent accomplishments.
It marks one of the first signs of internal pushback to the Tesla billionaire’s campaign to downsize the federal workforce.
The OPM announced that responding to Musk’s email was not mandatory and that failing to respond by midnight on Monday would not be considered a resignation, as Musk had warned.
Musk, however, continued to insist that workers will be expected to respond or they would lose their jobs.
“Subject to the discretion of the president, they will be given another chance. Failure to respond a second time will result in termination,” Musk said on Monday afternoon.
Earlier in the day Donald Trump had spoken in support of the demand
“By asking the question, tell us what you did this week, what he’s doing is saying, are you actually working?” the president said.
But the ultimatum had already run into resistance with the FBI, the state department and the Pentagon among the agencies instructing employees not to answer the message. Other department heads advised staff to comply, while some told workers to wait for further guidance before responding.
Attorneys for federal workers said in a lawsuit Musk had violated the law with his weekend demand. An updated lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in California and was provided to the Associated Press, is trying to block mass layoffs.
In other developments:
-
Donald Trump said Vladimir Putin would accept European peacekeepers in Ukraine as part of a potential deal to end the three-year war. Trump was speaking alongside French president Emmanuel Macron at the White House as the leaders sought to smooth over a transatlantic rift to achieve peace.
-
The Trump-Macron meeting came as the US voted against a United Nations resolution condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, siding with countries such as North Korea, Belarus and Sudan over European allies.
-
Trump said the US and Ukraine are “very close” to coming to terms on a rare earth minerals agreement, in comments made during a visit from French president Emmanuel Macron amid European concerns over the US position on Ukraine.
-
A federal judge on Monday denied a request by the Associated Press to immediately restore full access to presidential events for the news agency’s journalists, but said the issue required more exploration before ruling. The Trump administration barred the outlet earlier this month for continuing to refer to the Gulf of Mexico in its coverage after the president renamed it the “Gulf of America”.
-
A federal judge has blocked the government downsizing team Doge from accessing sensitive data maintained by the US education department and the US office of personnel management. US district judge Deborah Boardman in Greenbelt, Maryland issued the temporary restraining order at the behest of a coalition of labour unions.
-
A federal judge has extended protections for trans women in prison. The judge, who blocked the Federal Bureau of Prisons from carrying out Donald Trump’s executive order that would have transferred three incarcerated trans women into men’s facilities earlier this month, has extended protections for nine additional women.
-
A federal judge blocked immigration agents from conducting enforcement operations in houses of worship for some religious groups, the Associated Press reported. US district judge Theodore Chang found that the Trump administration policy could violate their religious freedom and should be blocked while a lawsuit challenging it plays out.
-
Former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has launched his campaign for Ohio governor.
