He was not enough. Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, returned to the load on Monday and threatened that they do not answer a message in which he asks for, without having authority to do so, to explain what they have done at work the previous week . The performance of the president of the United States, Donald Trump, and his main ally, Elon Musk, has more and more features that resemble authoritarianism, by throwing their threats arbitrarily, without submitting to laws or procedures, and demanding what what He wants, even if they have no legal enable for it.
The administration itself had to clarify on Monday to answer the inadmissible request of Musk and his team was voluntary and as he had threatened without foundation, but at the same time Trump insisted that he did not answer was comparable to being fired, feeding legal insecurity. Musk said he grants employees a second chance. “At the discretion of the president, they will be given another chance. The lack of response for the second time will lead to dismissal ”, although it is not clear when the new message will be sent.
The controversy began when, in the middle of the weekend, the administration sent a email to the approximately 2.3 million federal employees with the matter: “What did you do last week?” The email body said: “Please respond to this email with approximately five points of what you achieved last week with your manager.” The deadline to respond was Monday at 23.59, east time of the United States (05.59 on Tuesday in peninsular Spain). The mail did not identify the issuer or his authorization to request that information.
Before the officials received it, Musk again without legal coverage: “According to the instructions of President Donald Trump, all federal employees will soon receive an email in which they will be asked to report what they have done by the last week. The lack of response will be interpreted as a resignation, ”the billionaire born in South Africa published on Saturday.
The demand many of them planted face to Musk’s demands and told their employees that they did not answer the petition. It has been the most significant public divergence between Trump’s billionaire ally and the members of the president’s cabinet. Finally, the White House Personnel Management Office informed those responsible for the agencies that their employees were not obliged to respond, but that the answer was voluntary, implicitly disavowing Musk.
The president himself defended the Musk initiative and his team also signed his theory of conspiracy that there are a large number of officials who charge their payroll without even existing, a thesis that has also embraced Musk without presenting any evidence or indication In this regard.
“We are trying to find out if people are working,” Trump said in the Oval Office, accompanied by the president of France, Emmanuel Macron. Trump justified Musk’s demand as an effort to identify those people. “And then, if they do not respond, such as they are semi -dishedid, or fired, because many people are not responding because they do not even exist,” he said that many people on the federal payroll correspond to false identities.
“We believe that non -existent people or the identities of deceased persons are being used to collect payment checks. In other words, it is an absolute fraud, ”he said, without contributing the slightest indication in this regard.
Asked about the instructions of some departments and agencies to their employees telling them that they did not answer the request of Musk, Trump reduced importance to the discrepancies. “They don’t say it in any way combative with Elon,” he said, and added that “everyone thought it was a pretty great idea.” According to Trump, what some departments were doing was trying to preserve their confidential information, although the confrontation seems to go further.
“Incompetence”
Lawyers representing unions, companies, veterans and other organizations filed a lawsuit before a federal court in California, arguing that Musk had violated the law by threatening to mass dismissals. The lawsuit, headed by the State Democracy defenders fund, described it as “one of the most massive labor frauds in the history of this country.”
Musk, however, continues to insist on his thesis and treat federal officials and employees derogatory. “The application by email was totally trivial, since the rule to overcome the test consisted of typing some words and clicks Send! However, many did not even pass that inane test, urged in some cases by their bosses. Have you ever witnessed so much incompetence for how your taxes are spent? Makes old Twitter look good. I didn’t believe that was possible, “” it’s just about asking federal workers to do what everyone does. It is fair, ”he also wrote, as if any employee of any company had to answer a request like this even if he came from someone not enabled to do it.
United States (whether tariffs or other) to stabilize the trajectory of your debt. However, Trump and his team have entered the administration as an elephant in Cacharrería, with the addition that it does not seem to matter respecting the law. That is causing chaos and confusion within the administration, where federal employees receive contradictory indications. As a whole, the treatment that officials are receiving remains attractive to federal employment for the future.
The mail about what the employees did the previous week opens a new front, but the layoffs continue independently of that email. In addition, since Monday, “as of this week, those who do not yet return to their positions will be on administrative license,” Musk wrote. “The full -time distance work of the Covid era is finished,” said Lee Zeldin, the new Trump administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
