• Federal workers were emailed Saturday with a request to list productivity details from their week.
• Elon Musk said that those who don't reply by 11:59 p.m. on Monday will have forfeited their role.
• Many federal employees told BI they feel frustrated by the request. Some have already been told not to respond.

Several federal workers across agencies told Business Insider they're frustrated and scared for their jobs after Elon Musk said they must email their work accomplishments or risk losing their jobs.

Some say they're skeptical of the ramifications — others have been told not to respond.

The productivity-tracking email, sent Saturday afternoon from an HR account in the Office of Personnel Management, followed President Donald Trump's instruction to Musk to "get more aggressive" in reducing the size of the federal bureaucracy. It's the latest of DOGE's sweeping initiatives that have resulted in mass firings, funding pauses, and work stoppages in departments and agencies across the federal government.

Musk, who's closely linked to the DOGE office, teased that the email would be forthcoming in a post on X Saturday, writing: "Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation."

"It's terrible," one Department of Education employee whose work has been slowed by executive orders and layoffs said. "It feels like harassment, especially sending it out on a Saturday and boasting about it in advance on X so that everyone could be checking their email afternoon in anticipation of its arrival."

Another federal employee — from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — said they "can only imagine how many people they'll fire based on the responses/non-responses to this."

Another wondered "how much money is being wasted" on having federal employees respond to the email, while yet another questioned who would review the replies.

Representatives for the White House and Office of Personnel Management did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

Many of the federal workers who spoke with BI said that hours after the DOGE email had been sent, they had still not received any communication from their supervisors regarding how or whether to respond.

"No idea how to respond being as this is from outside our chain of command," one federal worker told BI.

Others said they had been instructed by their union representatives or managers to wait for further direction before replying.

"Once again, agencies were caught off guard by these emails, just like the chaotic "Fork in the Road" email," the National Treasury Employees Union wrote in an email to its members, urging them not to respond until they receive further guidance. "This email is yet another attempt by the administration to scare hardworking civil servants who deliver for the American people every day. It is shameful. We will update you soon."

The American Federation of Government Employees said in a notice to members that the union "strongly believes this email was sent illegitimately and that OPM lacks the authority to direct the assignment of work to agency employees in this manner."

"We will formally request that OPM rescind the email and clarify under what authority it was issued," the AFGE email reads. "In the meantime, AFGE advises all federal employees to forward the email to their supervisor and seek guidance on whether and how to respond, including the type of information that can be disseminated to OPM."

The productivity email that was sent to federal workers did not include Musk's comment on X that employees who did not respond by the Monday night deadline would be considered as having resigned. Several workers who saw his post said they wondered whether that would be possible — or legal.

"I question whether them firing people based on a non response to this would be legal," the Department of Education employee said. "There are a number of agencies, like DOJ, which has attorney-client privilege, or DHS, which engages with national security topics, where people will surely be told by supervisors not to respond."

Some of the federal workers who spoke to Business Insider had resolved not to respond. Others, disheartened by the aggressive funding and job cuts propelled by the DOGE office, said they had begun looking for other work even if they didn't believe they'd be fired.

A member of the Department of Health and Human Services' Disaster Medical Assistance Team, part time disaster workers who respond to federal disasters like hurricanes and earthquakes, suggested they might resign either way.

"I have another job like the rest of us and I don't need this type of stress," the DMAT member said. "Maybe I'll just resign."

The employee said they're part of a group of people that thrives "in stressful situations," but that the stress of having their job in limbo "is different."

• Sam Altman, in a Saturday post on X, announced his baby had been born "early."
• The newborn will be "in the NICU for awhile," the OpenAI CEO said, but added, "he is doing well."
• "I have never felt such love," Altman wrote.

Sam Altman has welcomed a baby, he announced Saturday in a post on X.

"welcome to the world, little guy!" the OpenAI head wrote, alongside a close-up photo of the newborn, with the baby's hand grasping an adult's finger.

"He came early and is going to be in the nicu for awhile," Altman continued, referring to the neonatal intensive care unit, where newborns receive specialized medical treatment after birth. "He is doing well and it's really nice to be in a little bubble taking care of him. i have never felt such love."

Altman, who is married to software engineer Oliver Mulherin, hasn't said if he plans to take paternity leave, but the new addition comes at a busy time for the OpenAI leader. The artificial intelligence company is in the middle of a significant transition from a nonprofit entity, having announced plans in December to transfer control of daily operations to its for-profit subsidiary. The move has attracted legal challenges from OpenAI's competitor, Elon Musk.

Representatives for OpenAI declined to comment on the birth when reached by Business Insider.

In a January 6 episode of the Re:Thinking podcast hosted by Adam Grant, Altman said he was expecting a child, adding that children in the future will never know a world without AI that's smarter than they are.

"And that'll be natural," Altman told Grant. "And, of course, it's smarter than us. Of course, it can do things we can't, but also who really cares? I think it's only weird for us in this one transition time."

The birth announcement quickly made waves through the tech world, with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella sending well wishes in a response on X, writing: "My heartfelt congratulations, @sama! Parenthood is one of life's most profound and rewarding experiences. Wishing you and your family the very best."

Altman and Mulherin married in January 2024 in an intimate ceremony. The pair, who live together in San Francisco, have led a relatively private relationship, making one of their first public appearances in 2023 when the OpenAI CEO brought Mulherin to a White House dinner.

In a September 2023 interview with New York Magazine, Altman said that the pair planned to have kids soon.

• Growing up, my family would take road trips from New England to Florida.
• When my grandfather was 94, me and my dad took him for one last road trip.
• He died six months later, but the memories from that trip will always be with me.

Growing up, my family was fortunate enough to take a few road trips from New England to Florida. We'd pile suitcases, razor scooters, Doritos, and coolers into the proverbial family station wagon and brave the tumultuous nearly 2,000 miles of Interstate 95.

This stretch of highway carries over 100 million people, including thousands of trucks and semis carrying goods throughout the country; it is not for the faint of heart at times.

My paternal grandfather started this tradition in his 70s with a group of older friends. When it got too cold in New England, they migrated south with the birds.

We decided to take him on a road trip again

As my grandfather got older and his group of friends dwindled, the trip became more arduous and less frequent.

He was a virile man, working until his 80s and shoulder-pressing my adolescent sister to prove his continued strength. However, as he got into his mid-90s, that virility diminished, and even walking became difficult. After Christmas in his 94th year, his morale had crashed. He required a walker or wheelchair at times, and the cold got to him more than ever. It became clear he needed the respite of a southern migration.

So the 94-year-old World War II vet, his motorcycle and car enthusiast son (my father), and a naive recent college grad who thought they knew more about the world than they did (me) loaded the Trailblazer and followed the birds. Grandpa sat in the back seat with his face against the window while my father and I split driving duties in the front.

The stretch 95 from the George Washington Bridge through New Jersey was always brutal, but hitting Delaware was like seeing the greener grass on the other side of the fence. Now, state sizes would fluctuate, traffic would subside, and we'd ease into the relief of warmth. This is where my grandfather found great joy in tracking the milemakers on the side of the road. He'd call out each green sign as we progressed, "10 miles to Maryland."

Next, we hit the gauntlet of the Chesapeake and mid-Atlantic. Baltimore tunnel can add hours to the already bullish commute, and DC is like playing traffic Russian roulette. Luckily, the old man knew the detours of these areas, and we passed the Mason-Dixon with comparative ease. The shift in the environment led to Grandpa spinning some new yarns: his zig zag train ride in the war that brought him to Fort Bragg, the time he nearly sold his Cadillac to a stranger at a gas station on this route, stealing oranges from a golf course.

The external temperature had barely changed from New England, but he was getting warmer.

Eventually, after reading every billboard between the Carolinas aloud, he took a long nap. There was a sort of silent understanding between my father and me, knowing this trip might be the last of its kind.

It was his last trip

After about an 18-hour trek, we hit the Sunshine State. You could see the smile light up on the old man's face.

The following week, we pushed the wheelchair down the Hollywood boardwalk, stopping for an occasional cold beer at tiki bars or street vendors. My grandfather was in complete awe by the wave pool at Margaritaville, watching would-be surfers tumble into the chlorinated water.

The stories continued, too. I learned my grandfather was born on a kitchen table. Our ultimate patriarch (his father) had blue eyes, a rarity for Italian immigrants in the 20s. Grandpa would push his handicapped daughter's wheelchair onto the beach and carry her into the water so she could feel the surf on her legs. I wish I could have carried him from his, but the man never wore shorts.

We'd end our Floridian pilgrimage and headed back north after a week. The old man died about six months later, but moments from that week were constantly part of his conversations until then.

They'll continue to be a part of mine forever.

Elon Musk on Saturday said all federal employees will be required to send an email reporting what they accomplished in the last week — and failing to do so will be considered a resignation.

Why it matters: It's a page straight out of the playbook Musk used when he took over Twitter, making workers justify themselves to stay employed.

• The difference is that these are Civil Service employees, many with union protection — to say nothing of a Congress increasingly ill at ease with the blowback over how they're being fired.

Catch up quick: Musk posted his demand to X on Saturday afternoon.

• "Consistent with President (Trump's) instructions, all federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week. Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation," he wrote.
• It follows a Trump post to Truth Social early Saturday morning, calling on Musk to get more aggressive with DOGE's government-slashing efforts.

Zoom out: Musk's post appears to mark the start of the next phase of DOGE's efforts to slash the federal workforce, following tens of thousands of terminations of probationary employees in recent days.

What they're saying: The president of the largest union for federal employees, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), was quick to blast Musk's demand.

• "It is cruel and disrespectful to hundreds of thousands of veterans who are wearing their second uniform in the civil service to be forced to justify their job duties to the this out-of-touch, privileged, unelected billionaire who has never performed one single hour of honest public service in his life," Everett Kelley said in a statement.
• "AFGE will challenge any unlawful terminations of our members and federal employees across the country."

For the record: The White House did not immediately respond to an email for comment on Musk's post.