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Some Agencies Urge Staff Not to Comply With Elon Musk’s Performance Email
Several Trump-appointed agency leaders urged federal workers not to comply with Elon Musk’s order to summarize their accomplishments for the past week or be removed from their positions, even as Mr. Musk doubled down on his demand over the weekend.
Their instructions in effect countermanded the order of Mr. Musk across much of the government, challenging the broad authority President Trump has given the world’s richest man to make drastic changes to the federal bureaucracy. The standoff serves as one of the first significant tests of how far Mr. Musk’s power will extend.
As the directive ricocheted across the federal government, officials at some agencies, including the F.B.I., the office coordinating America’s intelligence agencies and the Departments of Defense, State, Energy, Health and Human Services and Homeland Security, told their employees not to respond.
Mr. Musk’s email had even reached the inboxes of sitting federal judges — who are in the judicial branch, not the executive. The administrative office for the federal courts advised judges and staff that “this email did not originate from the judiciary or the administrative office and we suggest that no action be taken.”
The public pushback reflects a growing unease — and, in some cases, alarm — behind the scenes across the Trump administration about the perception of Mr. Musk’s unchecked power.
The unease runs from lower staff to some cabinet secretaries, who have tired of having to justify specific intricacies of agency policy and having to scramble to address unforeseen controversies that Mr. Musk has ignited.
Those officials are aware that he has influence over the president privately, and they fear him using X, the social media website he owns, to single out people he views as obstructing him, according to one senior administration official.
Hours after a senior Defense Department official publicly and firmly pushed back on Mr. Musk’s directive on Sunday afternoon, Mr. Musk singled him out for retribution, saying on X that “anyone with the attitude of that Pentagon official needs to look for a new job.”
One person who was quiet about the controversy throughout much of the weekend was Mr. Trump; after posting on social media on Saturday morning that he wanted Mr. Musk to be more “aggressive,” and then bragging about the purge of federal workers in a speech hours later, the president had remained mute on the subject for much of Sunday.
That afternoon, however, Mr. Trump posted a meme, which he said came from Mr. Musk, mocking federal workers who had to explain their duties and accomplishments, but he did not weigh in on the internal government conflict between his appointees.
Mr. Musk’s public statements about his cost-cutting effort, known as the Department of Government Efficiency, have often expressed an open contempt for the federal work force, which includes some of Mr. Trump’s supporters.
By Sunday afternoon, some of the pushback against Mr. Musk from administration officials — coming in large part from the national security apparatus and law enforcement agencies — had become public and explicit.
“The Department of Defense is responsible for reviewing the performance of its personnel and it will conduct any review in accordance with its own procedures,” Darin S. Selnick, the acting Pentagon official in charge of personnel, said in a statement, instructing Pentagon employees to “for now, please pause any response.”
Tulsi Gabbard, the director of the office of national intelligence, ordered all intelligence community officers not to respond, in a message to intelligence officials reviewed by The New York Times.
“Given the inherently sensitive and classified nature of our work, I.C. employees should not respond to the OPM email,” Ms. Gabbard wrote.
Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, wrote in an email to employees that “the F.B.I., through the office of the director, is in charge of all our review processes,” telling workers that they should “for now, please pause any responses.”
Senior personnel officials at the State and Homeland Security Departments also instructed their employees to not respond to the email.
At the Justice Department and F.B.I., the threatening signals from Mr. Musk were met with a mix of anger and amazement that anyone would issue such a blanket demand without consideration for sensitive areas such as criminal investigations, legal confidentiality or grand jury material.
Some law enforcement supervisors quickly told employees to wait for more guidance from managers on Monday before responding to the demand, according to current and former officials.
Other departments gave conflicting guidance. The Department of Health and Human Services told its employees on Sunday morning to follow the directive. An hour later, an email from the Trump-appointed acting director of the National Institutes of Health, a subordinate agency, told employees to hold off on responding. Hours later, the health department told all employees to “pause” responses to the ultimatum.
On Saturday, Mr. Musk posted a demand for government employees to summarize their accomplishments for the week, warning that failure to do so would be taken as a resignation. Soon after, the Office of Personnel Management, which manages the federal work force, sent an email asking civil servants for a list of accomplishments, but it did not include the threat of removal for not complying.
Unions representing federal workers suggested that Mr. Musk’s order was not valid. They advised their members to follow guidance from their supervisors on how, and whether, to respond to the email.
In a scathing letter on Sunday, Everett B. Kelley, the president of the American Federation of Government Employees — the largest federal employee union — told the acting director of the Office of Personnel Management that the email sent to federal employees was “plainly unlawful” and “thoughtless.”
Mr. Kelley demanded that the order be retracted, and noted, “By allowing the unelected and unhinged Elon Musk to dictate O.P.M.’s actions, you have demonstrated a lack of regard for the integrity of federal employees and their critical work.”
Multiple intelligence agencies, including the National Security Agency, had warned employees that responding could risk inadvertently disclosing classified work.
Although Mr. Musk’s original email told employees not to include classified material, current and former intelligence officials said that if an adversary gained access to thousands of unclassified accounts of intelligence officers’ work that it would be able to piece together sensitive details or learn about projects that were supposed to remain secret.
Representative Mike Lawler, a New York Republican whose seat may be among the most fiercely contested in 2026, raised doubt about the order even as he gave broader support to Mr. Musk’s cost-cutting effort.
“I don’t know how that’s necessarily feasible,” Mr. Lawler said of the ultimatum. “Obviously, a lot of federal employees are under union contract.”
Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, also criticized Mr. Musk’s order.
“Our public workforce deserves to be treated with dignity and respect for the unheralded jobs they perform,” she wrote in a statement on social media. “The absurd weekend email to justify their existence wasn’t it.”
It is unclear what legal basis Mr. Musk would have to justify mass firings based on responses to the email, and the White House and the Office of Personnel Management did not immediately answer questions about the threat of removal.
But Mr. Musk — who made similar unconventional demands during his takeover of Twitter, now known as X — insisted on Sunday morning that the order amounted to “a very basic pulse check.”
In a series of posts, Mr. Musk also promoted baseless claims of wage fraud — that a significant number of “non-existent” or dead people were employed in the federal work force, and that criminals were using the fake employees to collect government paychecks.
“They are covering immense fraud,” Mr. Musk said in response to a post by a supporter that said that “the left is flipping out about a simple email.”
His claims echo a similar one that tens of millions of dead people may be receiving fraudulent Social Security payments. A recent report by the Social Security Administration’s inspector general — a watchdog that investigates the program for waste, fraud and abuse — found that “almost none” of the people in the agency’s database who had likely died were receiving payments.
Reporting was contributed by Julian E. Barnes, Hamed Aleaziz, Apoorva Mandavilli, Devlin Barrett, Rebecca Davis O’Brien, Ken Bensinger, Kate Conger, Sheryl Gay Stolberg, Adam Goldman, Minho Kim, Kate Zernike, Lisa Friedman and Margot Sanger-Katz.
Donald Trump said he has sealed an agreement with Nato allies that will lead to large-scale arms deliveries to Ukraine, including Patriot missiles, and warned Russia that it will face severe sanctions if Moscow does not make peace within 50 days.
After a meeting with the Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, Trump said they had agreed “a very big deal”, in which “billions of dollars’ worth of military equipment is going to be purchased from the United States, going to Nato … And that’s going to be quickly distributed to the battlefield.”
Speaking in the White House alongside a clearly delighted Rutte, the US president said the arms deliveries would be comprehensive and would include the Patriot missile batteries that Ukraine desperately needs for its air defences against a daily Russian aerial onslaught.
“It’s everything: it’s Patriots. It’s all of them. It’s a full complement, with the batteries,” Trump said.
He did not go into any more detail, but made clear the weapons would be entirely paid for by Washington’s European allies, and that initial missile deliveries would come “within days” from European stocks, on the understanding they would be replenished with US supplies.
At a White House lunch with religious leaders later in the day, Trump said the deal was “fully approved, fully done”.
“We’ll send them a lot of weapons of all kinds and they’re going to deliver those weapons immediately … and they’re going to pay,” he said.
At his meeting with Trump, Rutte said there was a significant number of Nato allies – including Germany, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands and Canada – ready to rearm Ukraine as part of the deal.
“They all want to be part of this. And this is only the first wave. There will be more,” he said.
The German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said last week that Berlin was ready to acquire additional Patriot systems.
Trump claimed there was one country, which he did not name, but which had “17 Patriots getting ready to be shipped”. Monday’s deal would include that stockpile, or “a big portion of the 17”, he said.
Such an arms delivery would represent a significant reinforcement of Ukraine’s air defences. Kyiv is currently thought to have only six Patriot batteries, at a time when it is coming under frequent and intense Russian drone and missile bombardments.
At the same time, Trump expressed increased frustration with Vladimir Putin, whom he accused of giving the impression of pursuing peace while intensifying attacks on Ukrainian cities. He gave the Russian president a new deadline of 50 days to end the fighting or face 100% tariffs on Russian goods, and more importantly, sweeping “secondary tariffs”, suggesting trade sanctions would be imposed on countries who continue to pay for Russian oil and other commodities.
“The secondary tariffs are very, very powerful,” the president said.
The announcement marked a dramatic change for the administration, both in substance and tone.
The Trump White House had not only made clear it would continue its predecessor’s policy of continuing to supply Ukraine out of US stocks, but the president and his top officials have been derisive about Kyiv’s chances of prevailing.
On Monday, Trump delivered his most admiring language on Ukraine and its European backers to date, with Rutte on one side and the US vice-president, JD Vance, the administration’s biggest sceptic on US involvement in Europe, on the other.
“They fought with tremendous courage, and they continue to fight with tremendous courage,” Trump said of the Ukrainians.
“Europe has a lot of spirit for this war,” he said, suggesting he had been taken by surprise by the level of commitment shown by European allies at the Nato summit in The Hague last month. “The level of esprit de corps spirit that they have is amazing,” he said. “They really think it’s very, very important.
“Having a strong Europe is a very good thing. It’s a very good thing. So I’m okay with it,” he said.
Trump described his deepening disillusion with Putin, and suggested his wife, Melania, may have played a role in pointing out the Russian leader’s duplicity in talks over a peace deal.
“My conversations with him are always very pleasant. I say, isn’t that a very lovely conversation? And then the missiles go off that night,” Trump said. “I go home, I tell the first lady: I spoke with Vladimir today. We had a wonderful conversation. She said: Really? Another city was just hit.”
Ukrainian regional officials reported at least six civilians killed and 30 injured by Russian bombing in the past 24 hours. The country’s air force said Moscow had attacked with 136 drones and four S-300 or S-400 missiles.
“Look, I don’t want to say he’s an assassin, but he’s a tough guy. It’s been proven over the years. He’s fooled a lot of people,” Trump said, listing his predecessors in the White House.
“He didn’t fool me. But what I do say is that at a certain point, ultimately talk doesn’t talk. It’s got to be action,” he said.
Russian officials and pro-war bloggers on Monday largely shrugged off Trump’s announcement, declaring it to be less significant than anticipated.
Konstantin Kosachev, a senior Russian lawmaker, wrote on Telegram that it amounted to “hot air”.
It was broadly welcomed in Kyiv, where there has been longstanding and deep anxiety about Trump’s intentions. Andrii Kovalenko, a member of Ukraine’s national security and defence council, posted a one-word response: “Cool.”
There was still scepticism however, over whether even the promise of new weaponry for Ukraine combined with the threat of trade sanctions would be enough to halt Russia’s offensive.
Illia Ponomarenko, a Ukrainian journalist and blogger wrote: “How many Ukrainian lives could have been saved if, from the very beginning, Trump had listened to wise and honest people about helping Ukraine, instead of the artful lies of that cannibal Putin on the phone?”.
Then-candidate Donald Trump is rushed offstage by U.S. Secret Service agents after being struck by a bullet during a rally on July 13, 2024, in Butler, Pa.
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
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A Senate committee report released Sunday blames the U.S. Secret Service for a “cascade of preventable failures” that led up to the assassination attempt against then-presidential candidate Donald Trump during a rally in Butler, Pa., last summer.
Trump was injured in the shooting when a bullet whizzed past his head, grazing his ear. Two attendees were wounded, and rally-goer and former fire chief Corey Comperatore was killed.
A Secret Service sniper shot and killed the perpetrator, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, Pa.
In its report, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee said the Secret Service’s “lack of structured communication was likely the greatest contributor to the failures” on the day of the rally. The report was released by the committee’s chairman, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.
For instance, the Secret Service security room agent, who is responsible for collecting and disseminating information, learned about a suspicious person with a rangefinder from a counterpart in the Pennsylvania State Police roughly 25 minutes before the shooting. That agent relayed the report to a fellow Secret Service agent in the room, but the information did not go out over the radio or make it to Trump’s security detail in time for them to prevent him from taking the stage.
There were communication gaps both within the Secret Service hierarchy, and also among the agency and the state and federal law enforcement agencies on scene, the committee said.
There were organizational mistakes, too. The committee noted that one of the Secret Service countersniper teams protecting Trump at the Butler rally had an obstructed view of the roof of the nearby American Glass Research building where Crooks was located.
The report, released one year to the day after the shooting, also found that the Secret Service had denied some resources to Trump’s detail during the 2024 presidential election and said former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle had falsely testified to Congress when she said no requests were denied for the Butler rally.
In a statement on Sunday, Secret Service Director Sean Curran said the agency “took a serious look at our operations” following last year’s shooting and “implemented substantive reforms to address the failures that occurred that day.”
The agency announced last week that it had put in place 21 of 46 recommendations made by congressional oversight bodies, including streamlining communication procedures and clarifying the responsibilities of advance teams.
The Secret Service also said it had disciplined six employees in relation to the Butler shooting, with suspensions ranging from 10 to 42 days without pay. Still, the committee said in its report that “not a single person has been fired.”
Curran, who was one of the agents who surrounded Trump as shots were fired in Butler, added in his statement that the Secret Service will “continue to work cooperatively with the committee as we move forward in our mission.”
A young girl carries a stuffed bear during a vigil for those lost in the Texas floods at the “Wall of Hope” fence memorial in Kerrville, Texas, on Friday. Photo by Dustin Safranek/EPA
July 12 (UPI) — More than 2,100 searchers from a dozen Texas Counties, other states and Mexico are continuing recovery efforts to find more victims of the deadly flash flooding in central Texas.
The confirmed-deaths toll rose to 129 with 170 still missing after officials in Travis and Kerr counties reported the recovery of more bodies, USA Today reported.
Most of the dead, 103, were found in Kerr County, including 36 children and 67 adults.
Among those missing is Volunteer Fire Chief Michael Phillips, whose rescue vehicle was swept away when flash flooding struck Burnet County.
Search crews later found the vehicle, but Phillips was not inside.
“Specialist teams and equipment continue to deploy into the search area and work themselves to exhaustion or until nightfall in the effort to find him,” the Burnet County Sheriff’s Office announced on Saturday, according to USA Today.
Many states and Mexico sent entire first responder teams, including Indiana, which deployed personnel from 15 fire and police departments to help the recovery effort, The New York Times reported.
Many volunteer groups also traveled to Kerr County, where most search efforts are focused.
“It’s overwhelming to see so many people come and help in the search,” Kerrville, Texas, resident Amy Vanlandingham told The New York Times.
“This is our town,” she said. “I do it so I can sleep.”
The Guadalupe River’s flash flooding during the early morning hours of July 4 decimated several local camps and other popular visitor destinations on one of their busiest days of the year.
The bodies of victims likely are situated in debris fields located along more than 100 miles of narrow and shallow valleys along the Guadalupe River in the mostly rural area of Texas Hill Country.
President Donald Trump, first lady Melania Trump and others visited Kerr County on Friday to assess the situation and better gauge the need for federal assistance.
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