Federal workers sue over Elon Musk’s threat to fire them if they don’t explain their accomplishments
Attorneys for federal workers said on Monday in a lawsuit that billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk had violated the law with his weekend demand that employees explain their accomplishments or risk being fired, the AP reports.
The updated lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in California and was provided to the Associated Press, is trying to block mass layoffs pursued by Musk and president Donald Trump, including any connected to the email distributed by the Office of Personnel Management on Saturday.
The office, which functions as a human resources agency for the federal government, said employees needed to detail five things that they did last week by end of day on Monday.
“No OPM rule, regulation, policy, or program has ever, in United States history, purported to require all federal workers to submit reports to OPM,” said the amended complaint, which was filed on behalf of unions, businesses veterans, and conservation organizations represented by the group State Democracy Defenders Fund. It called the threat of mass firings “one of the most massive employment frauds in the history of this country.”
Musk, who is leading the Trump administration’s efforts to overhaul and downsize the federal government, continued to threaten federal workers on Monday morning even as confusion spread through the administration and some top officials told employees not to comply.
Key events
The US was forced to abstain in a UN General Assembly vote on a resolution it drafted to mark the third anniversary of Russia’s war in Ukraine after the 193-member body agreed to amendments proposed by European states.
The amendments made to the US resolution included adding references to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia and a just, lasting and comprehensive peace in line with the founding UN Charter and reaffirming the UN’s support for Ukraine’s sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity.
The amended US-drafted resolution won 93 votes in favor, while 73 states abstained and eight voted no, Reuters reports.
The US put forward its text on Friday, pitting it against Ukraine and European allies who spent the past month negotiating with their own resolution.
The General Assembly also adopted the resolution drafted by Ukraine and European countries on Monday with 93 votes in favor, 65 abstentions and 18 no votes.
Joanna Walters
Donald Trump has been speaking with reporters at the White House ahead of his meeting there with French president Emmanuel Macron and has been asked about the mass firings of federal workers by adviser Elon Musk.
He was asked about the notorious email sent by Musk yesterday with a directive to 2.3m federal employees across multiple departments to list their accomplishments in the past week by 11.59pm ET tonight or consider themselves out of a job.
Some departments are pushing back, but Trump just said the email was necessary “to find the workers who are not working.” More on this as soon as it comes through.
Joanna Walters
New FBI Director Kash Patel was sworn in today as acting chief of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), taking the helm of two separate and sprawling Justice Department agencies, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Patel was sworn in at ATF headquarters just days after he became director of the FBI, the person who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter told the Associated Press.
It’s not immediately clear if Donald Trump intends to nominate Patel for the ATF post. Justice Department and White House officials didn’t immediately respond.
The ATF is responsible for enforcing the nation’s laws around firearms, explosives and arson. Democrats raised alarm at Patel’s nomination for FBI director over his lack of management experience and incendiary past statements, including calling investigators who scrutinized Trump “government gangsters.”
Today’s move follows US attorney general Pam Bondi’s firing of the bureau’s top lawyer last week. Bondi said Friday in a Fox News interview that she fired chief counsel Pamela Hicks because the agency was “targeting gun owners.” Hicks spent more than 20 years as a Justice Department lawyer.
Joanna Walters
French president Emmanuel Macron has just been greeted by US president Donald Trump at the White House.
The two leaders have a crucial meeting at which Macron is expected to talk turkey with Trump about the vital need to include Ukraine and European leaders in talks to end the war in Ukraine, three years today since Russia’s unprovoked invasion of its smaller neighbor.
Macron is likely to push back on Trump’s talking point from last week, borrowed straight from the Kremlin, that Ukraine “started it” and also talk to him about the NATO alliance. We will be covering the news on this and the press conference due at 2pm ET via our Ukraine/Europe blog and our Washington bureau chief David Smith’s reporting from the scene.
Here’s a friendlier shot:
Interim summary
Another busy day in US politics continues with significant domestic and international drama. There’s a lot of news to come, so stick with this blog and our Ukraine/Europe blog and we’ll bring you all the developments as they happen.
Here’s where things stand in Washington so far:
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The Trump administration said it was placing all but a handful of USAid personnel around the world on paid administrative leave and eliminating about 2,000 of those positions in the US, as the rapid dismantling of the organization appears to move into its final phases.
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Attorneys for federal workers said in a lawsuit that billionaire adviser to Donald Trump, Elon Musk, had violated the law with his weekend demand that employees explain their accomplishments or risk being fired. An updated lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in California and was provided to the Associated Press, is trying to block mass layoffs.
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Ukraine and the US are working productively on an economic deal at the centre of an effort to end Russia’s war on Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. Follow this and all related news, on the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, live, here. That blog, and the Guardian’s Washington bureau chief, David Smith, will cover the visit to the White House by French president Emmanuel Macron this afternoon.
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Many federal government departments are telling staff not to comply with the Musk directive to list their accomplishments in the past week by 11.59 pm ET tonight. But the US Transportation Department has told workers they should respond to the demand by Donald Trump’s adviser.
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A federal judge has blocked the government downsizing team Doge from accessing sensitive data maintained by the US Education Department and the US Office of Personnel Management. US district judge Deborah Boardman in Greenbelt, Maryland issued the temporary restraining order at the behest of a coalition of labor unions.
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The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration laid off 4% of its staff as part of the government-wide slashing of probationary employees’ jobs. Coincidentally, the agency has pending investigations into deadly crashes involving Tesla cars, the electric vehicle maker owned by Musk.
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As the work of the very busy judiciary continues, in its constitutional role as a co-equal power base and check on the executive branch, a federal judge is set to consider this afternoon a request by the Associated Press (AP) to restore full access for the news agency’s journalists after the Trump administration barred them from certain governmental access for continuing to refer to the Gulf of Mexico in coverage. National media and hundreds of local media outlets rely on the AP.
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The Trump administration has blocked a crucial step in the National Institutes of Health (NIH) process for funding medical research, likely in violation of a federal judge’s temporary restraining order on federal funding freezes.
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Elon Musk’s email demanding all 2.3 million government workers justify their work has caused confusion, with several administration officials telling workers not to reply to the missive. On Saturday the tech billionaire sent an email titled: “What did you do last week?” requesting a bullet-point summary of what they had achieved in their working week.
Robert Tait
Here is more on the appointment of far-right podcaster Dan Bongino as deputy director of the FBI, from my colleague Robert Tait.
Bongino’s appointment as deputy to the newly confirmed director, Kash Patel, marks the first time in the bureau’s 117-year history that the second-in-command post has not been held by one of its senior agents.
It further increased fears – already high following Patel’s confirmation as director – that the administration would attempt to use the bureau to pursue its political enemies.
“Donald Trump just named far-right MAGA podcaster Dan Bongino, a notorious conspiracy theorist who promoted the lie that the 2020 election was ‘stolen,’ to serve as Deputy Director of the FBI. God help us all,” posted the X account Republicans Against Trump.
Nesrine Malik
There is a clear Trump doctrine, writes Nesrine Malik, and those who can’t see it won’t have a say in reshaping the world.
Part of the problem is that people are reluctant to imbue Trump with any sort of coherence. But a Trump doctrine is emerging, most sharply in foreign policy. It has clear features, contours and a sort of unified theory of conflict. First, it is transactional, particularly when it comes to warfare in which the US is playing a role. Nothing has a history or any objective sense of right and wrong. Time starts with Trump, and his role is to end things, ideally while securing some bonus for the US.
That upside is the second feature of the Trump doctrine: financialisation, or the reduction of politics to how much things cost, what is the return and how it can be maximised. Trump sees conflicts and financial assistance that have not produced anything tangible for the US. From the Gaza war, some sort of real estate deal can be salvaged. In Ukraine, a proposal for almost four times the value of US assistance so far in minerals is like the stripping of a distressed company by a new investment manager trying to recoup the funds disbursed by predecessors.
The third feature is the junking of any notions of “soft power” – something that is seen as expensive, with questionable benefits that are abstract and unquantifiable. Soft power might even be a myth altogether, a fiction that flattered previously gullible regimes, giving them some sense of control while others fed off the US’s resources. In Gaza or Ukraine, the US was going through the motions of action without a definitive breakthrough. Where others saw soft power, Trump sees quagmires.
There are now two options for the US’s former close friends and security partners: shed everything, dispense with notions of European solidarity, fast-forward the end of the postwar order, and make peace with defence vulnerability and political subordination. Or embark on a colossal power-mapping exercise. This entails rapid, closely coordinated action on a political, bureaucratic and military level to either replace the US, or at least demonstrate that they constitute a bloc that has some power, agency and agility – and challenge Trump in the only language he understands.
You can read Nesrine’s column here:
Here is my colleague Joseph Gedeon’s story on federal judge temporarily blocking Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) from accessing the sensitive personal information of millions of Americans.
Dealing a quick blow to the second Trump administration’s controversial government downsizing goals, US district judge Deborah Boardman ruled that the Department of Education and office of personnel management – the government’s HR department – must stop sharing federal employees’ and student borrowers’ personal data with Doge officials, stating that such access appears to violate federal privacy laws.
Further to that, Reuters is now reporting that the United States intends to use its veto at the UN Security Council if any amendments are made to the resolution it put forward, a State Department official said on Monday.
The official, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity, said the Trump administration was focused on getting the parties to the war in Ukraine to the table, amid criticism over the US resolution omitting any reference to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
The official said:
We’re going to veto a Russian amendment if it comes to us in the Security Council. We will veto the Europeans’… amendments if they come to us in the Security Council.
Zelenskyy’s comments come as the UN General Assembly are meeting to vote on two draft resolutions on Ukraine.
The US has pressured Ukraine to withdraw its European-backed resolution demanding an immediate withdrawal of Russian forces from Ukraine in favor of an American proposal that does not mention Moscow’s invasion, AP reports.
The US believes “this is the moment to commit to ending the war. This is our opportunity to build real momentum toward peace,” secretary of state Marco Rubio said in a statement late on Friday.
He said that “while challenges may arise, the goal of lasting peace remains achievable” and that the resolution would “affirm that this conflict is awful, that the UN can help end it, and that peace is possible”.
The Ukraine resolution, co-sponsored by the EU-27, refers to “the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation” and recalls the need to implement all previous assembly resolutions “adopted in response to the aggression against Ukraine”.
It singles out the General Assembly’s demand that Russia “immediately, completely and unconditionally withdraw all of its military forces from the territory of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders” and its demand to immediately halt all hostilities.
And it calls for “a de-escalation, an early cessation of hostilities and a peaceful resolution of the war against Ukraine”.
The very brief US draft resolution acknowledges “the tragic loss of life throughout the Russia-Ukraine conflict” and “implores a swift end to the conflict and further urges a lasting peace between Ukraine and Russia.” It never mentions Moscow’s invasion.
Russia’s UN ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, told reporters last week that the US resolution was “a good move”.
Both resolutions will now be voted on in turn and we’ll bring you more as we get it.
Ukraine and US working ‘productively’ on economic deal – Zelenskyy
Ukraine and the US are working productively on an economic deal at the centre of an effort to end Russia’s war on Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday.
The Ukrainian president made the remark in Kyiv during an address through video link to the leaders of G7 countries, including US president Donald Trump, during which he repeated that both Europe and Ukraine should be involved in a peace process.
Trump’s main focus on Ukraine has appeared to be extracting concessions via a deal allowing the US to exploit the country’s vast mineral wealth. Zelenskyy rejected an initial proposal for a $500bn minerals deal and said he did not recognise the sum demanded by the White House as apparent “payback” for previous US military assistance, where for every $1 of any future military aid Kyiv has to pay back $2 – an interest rate, Zelenskyy noted, of 100%. What is more, the US’s opening offer came without security guarantees for Ukraine.
Zelenskyy said in a press conference on Sunday:
I don’t want something that 10 generations of Ukrainians will have to pay back.
US treasury secretary Scott Bessent – who delivered the original proposal to Zelenskyy – told Fox News yesterday he was “quite hopeful” an agreement will be struck this week, and Zelenskyy’s chief of staff Andrii Yermak said on social media that the ongoing conversation was “constructive”, adding: “We are making progress.”
My colleague Jane Clinton is covering all the latest on Ukraine here:
Elon Musk called the co-leader of Germany’s far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) to congratulate her on the party’s performance in Sunday’s election after it doubled its support from the last election, my colleagues Deborah Cole and Helen Sullivan report.
Alice Weidel hinted she had slept through an overnight attempt to reach her by the Trump adviser and Tesla CEO, who had repeatedly intervened in the German campaign on her behalf.
“When I turned on my telephone this morning or rather looked at it, I had missed calls from the US including from Elon Musk who personally congratulated [me],” she told reporters.
The party was endorsed by Musk and the US vice-president, JD Vance, during the election campaign. Musk, who had described the AfD in January as the “best hope for the future” in Germany, shared a post showing the party’s gains since 2021, with the caption “Holy shit!”.
Trump administration eliminating 2,000 USAid positions in US, notice says
The Trump administration said it was placing all but a handful of USAid personnel around the world on paid administrative leave and eliminating about 2,000 of those positions in the US, as the rapid dismantling of the organization appears to move into its final phases.
“As of 11:59 p.m. EST on Sunday, February 23, 2025, all USAid direct hire personnel, with the exception of designated personnel responsible for mission-critical functions, core leadership and/or specially designated programs, will be placed on administrative leave globally,” reads the notice sent to agency workers and posted online on Sunday.
“Concurrently”, the notice added, the agency is “beginning to implement a Reduction-in-Force” affecting about 2,000 USAid personnel in the US.
The White House did not immediately respond to request for comment.
Billionaire Elon Musk has boasted that he is “feeding USAID into the wood chipper” as his so-called “department of government efficiency” has led an effort to gut the main delivery mechanism for American foreign assistance, a critical tool of US “soft power” for winning influence abroad.
On Friday, a federal judge cleared the way for the Trump administration to put thousands of USAid workers on leave, a setback for government employee unions that are suing over what they have called an effort to dismantle it.
The full story is here:
Federal workers sue over Elon Musk’s threat to fire them if they don’t explain their accomplishments
Attorneys for federal workers said on Monday in a lawsuit that billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk had violated the law with his weekend demand that employees explain their accomplishments or risk being fired, the AP reports.
The updated lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in California and was provided to the Associated Press, is trying to block mass layoffs pursued by Musk and president Donald Trump, including any connected to the email distributed by the Office of Personnel Management on Saturday.
The office, which functions as a human resources agency for the federal government, said employees needed to detail five things that they did last week by end of day on Monday.
“No OPM rule, regulation, policy, or program has ever, in United States history, purported to require all federal workers to submit reports to OPM,” said the amended complaint, which was filed on behalf of unions, businesses veterans, and conservation organizations represented by the group State Democracy Defenders Fund. It called the threat of mass firings “one of the most massive employment frauds in the history of this country.”
Musk, who is leading the Trump administration’s efforts to overhaul and downsize the federal government, continued to threaten federal workers on Monday morning even as confusion spread through the administration and some top officials told employees not to comply.
The US Transportation Department told workers they should respond to a demand by Donald Trump’s adviser Elon Musk to list their accomplishments in the past week by 11.59 pm ET on Monday.
USDOT has a workforce of about 57,000 people that includes the Federal Aviation Administration, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Federal Railroad Administration regulating companies including Boeing and Tesla.
The department’s email to employees on Monday said they should include about five bullet points of accomplishments but exclude classified information. In response to criticism of the order, Musk wrote on X: “This email is a basic pulse check.”
Some other agencies have told employees not to respond, even the FBI which is now headed by fierce Trump loyalist Kash Patel. Patel instructed agency staff to “please pause any responses,” in an email obtained by Politico.
Leadership at the Pentagon, State Department, Justice Department, FBI, NIH, Energy Department, DHS, HHS, Office of the DNI, NOAA and NSA have all told employees they should not or did not need to respond to the email as yet.
Judge blocks Musk’s Doge team from accessing Education Department and OPM data
A federal judge has blocked the government downsizing team created by Donald Trump and spearheaded by billionaire Elon Musk from accessing sensitive data maintained by the US Education Department and the US Office of Personnel Management, Reuters reports.
US district judge Deborah Boardman in Greenbelt, Maryland issued the temporary restraining order at the behest of a coalition of labor unions who argued the agencies wrongly granted Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” access to records containing personal information on millions of Americans.
The judge said the plaintiffs had established that both agencies had likely violated federal law by granting Doge “sweeping access” to sensitive personal information in violation of the Privacy Act of 1974.
That information included social security numbers, dates of birth, home addresses, income and assets, citizenship status and disability status for current and former federal employees and student aid recipients.
The Trump administration had argued that a ruling blocking Doge from accessing the information would impede the Republican president’s ability to fulfil his agenda by limiting what information his advisors can access.
But Boardman said her order prevents the disclosure of the plaintiffs’ sensitive personal information to Doge affiliates who, on the current record, do not have a need to know the information to perform their duties.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Auto safety agency laying off staff at agency that investigated Tesla crashes
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration laid off 4% of its staff as part of a government-wide trimming of probationary employees, a spokesperson said on Monday.
The agency has pending investigations into deadly crashes involving Tesla cars. Elon Musk is CEO of the automaker and president Donald Trump’s senior adviser on a crusade to shrink the federal government.
NHTSA said under former president Joe Biden the agency grew by 30% and is still considerably larger after the job cuts earlier this month. Its workforce was about 800 before the job cuts.
In addition to investigations into Tesla’s partially automated vehicles, NHTSA has mandated that Tesla and other automakers using self-driving technology report crash data on vehicles, a requirement that Tesla has criticized and that watchdogs fear could be eliminated.
