The government sent out a second batch of emails on Friday night in a new effort by billionaire Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency to evaluate the performance of government workers.
The US Health and Human Services Department informed its employees on Monday that they needed to answer a Trump administration’s email calling them to give a rundown of the work they’d done in the last week, going back on its previous statement. The government on Friday evening dispatched a second batch of emails in a new drive by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency to gauge the performance of civil servants.
HHS workers, including the CDC and FDA, had previously been instructed they weren’t obligated to reply to emails from DOGE and that there would be “no impact on your employment at the agency if you decline to respond.” Monday’s email, obtained by Reuters, instructed staff to reply by midnight and plan with supervisors a response.
Workers were instructed to keep their answers to a “high level of generality” and characterize work so that sensitive information and personally identifiable information are protected. HHS already cautioned employees that answers to DOGE’s query might “be read by malign foreign actors.” The department released two drafts of its email on Monday, the second of which eliminated that phrase.
