Elon Musk gave hundreds of thousands of federal workers 48 hours to justify their work from the previous week or face potential termination.
The directive, issued Saturday through both social media and email, required employees to submit “five bullets” about their recent accomplishments while copying their managers.
Several key agencies, including the State Department and federal courts, instructed their employees not to comply with the demand, while labor unions condemned the move and threatened legal action.
Musk said the directive was designed to uncover “outright fraud,” saying some government workers might be non-existent or using dead people’s identities to collect paychecks.