Elon Musk fights back as some of President Trump’s aides resist intensifying DOGE push
More than a dozen federal agencies, primarily led by Trump-appointed Cabinet secretaries, recently told employees that they did not need to comply with a directive from Musk.
Billionaire Elon Musk pushed Tuesday to overcome resistance from within the Trump administration to the orders of his U.S. DOGE Service, intensifying a remarkable high-level power struggle over the fate of the federal workforce.
Over the last several days, more than a dozen federal agencies, primarily led by Trump-appointed Cabinet secretaries, told employees that they did not need to comply with a Musk directive to email a list of what they had done in the past week. The rebuke was the most striking display yet of internal dissatisfaction with DOGE’s moves across the federal government, reflecting the desire of many Trump officials to reassert control over agencies that Musk has tried to gut, in some instances without their explicit permission.
But Musk has fought back, publicly condemning those who resisted and calling for federal employees to face a second order to explain their work accomplishments. His DOGE team, meanwhile, escalated its multipronged assault on the bureaucracy, preparing for a new round of even more sweeping layoffs and moving to cancel additional grants and other forms of federal spending, according to interviews with more than three dozen government officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to reflect private deliberations.
» READ MORE: As Philly federal workers face a deadline to share their accomplishments, the mandate has created added uncertainty
Musk’s surrogates, for instance, have in recent days directed the Department of Veterans Affairs to cut more than 800 existing federal contracts, internal records obtained by The Washington Post show. DOGE helped implement at least a partial freeze on government credit cards, ceasing the work of employees who need to bill expenses. And while many agency heads have rebuffed him in recent days, Musk has installed officials viewed as sympathetic to his aims at more and more agencies — including, in the last few days, the Internal Revenue Service and Social Security Administration — which could give him a far freer hand to implement his agenda.
Late Monday evening, Musk said on X that federal employees will be “given another chance” to respond to his email but that “failure to respond a second time will result in termination.”
While not attacking any of Trump’s advisers by name, Musk slammed those who had blocked the request in an implicit rebuke of the president’s Cabinet nominees: “The email request was utterly trivial, as the standard for passing the test was to type some words and press send! … Yet so many failed even that inane test, urged on in some cases by their managers. Have you ever witnessed such INCOMPETENCE and CONTEMPT for how YOUR TAXES are being spent?”
The developments brought into increasing public view the extraordinary tug-of-war between the president’s billionaire surrogate and the other senior Trump aides who will have to execute Musk’s vision of drastically shrinking the U.S. government. Musk has previously faced setbacks from federal courts but now is running into new sources of opposition — including some Republicans in Congress — as he races to remake the U.S. government in ways some critics call illegal.
At least a dozen agencies have said that employees do not have to answer the email asking what they did last week, according to records obtained by The Post. Those include the Justice Department, led by Attorney General Pam Bondi; the State Department, led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio; and the Defense Department, led by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth — among other senior aides with impeccable credentials as Trump allies. A weekend clash saw DOGE-driven cuts at the Education Department softened, people familiar with the situation said.
“Let’s be realistic: What we saw over the last week was a huge rebuke of Elon,” said a former Trump administration official who remains in close contact with current officials. “Trump’s Cabinet is finally beginning to realize the power of holding Senate-confirmed positions, which require a huge amount of political capital to replace.”
» READ MORE: ‘Shock across the system’: How government layoffs are impacting Philadelphia’s federal workforce
Several senior Trump officials said they had little to no warning of the Office of Personnel Management’s bullet-points email before Musk’s X post on Saturday — and then were deluged within minutes by questions from their own teams about how to respond. The officials also recounted spending much of the weekend strategizing over the OPM’s authority and what would happen if their agencies lost more workers.
“It was another Elon Musk headache,” said one Trump appointee, who said they were supportive of DOGE’s ambitions but growing weary of its interruptions. “Every day, same team, different problems.”
But still, at least 11 other agencies expressly directed staffers that they should respond to Musk’s request, emails obtained by The Post showed.
» READ MORE: Trump administration freezes National Park money for Valley Forge forest management
The scope of Musk’s authority will ultimately be decided by President Donald Trump, who has given mixed signals. In recent days, he has repeatedly affirmed his support for Musk — saying on social media that he wants him to “GET MORE AGGRESSIVE” — but refrained, at least thus far, from mandating his Cabinet secretaries to comply with every dictate, such as the email requiring federal employees to provide a bulleted list of five things they had achieved in the previous week.
On Tuesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt reiterated to reporters that Cabinet secretaries have discretion over whether their employees need to answer Musk’s email, even as she sought to downplay tensions among the president’s top advisers. Leavitt also said more than 1 million employees had replied to the email.
“The president defers to his Cabinet secretaries, who he’s obviously entrusted to pursue the guidance relative to their specific workforce,” Leavitt said.
» READ MORE: Trump backs Musk as he roils the federal workforce with demands and threats
Musk is forging ahead with plans of striking ambition — in part with the cooperation of federal employees, and sometimes because he has gotten allies into key roles.
A startlingly large number of federal employees, contracts and functions have come under DOGE crosshairs just in the last few days, on top of the mass dismissals of new workers and early federal retirement incentives already implemented by Musk’s team.
At the Interior Department, DOGE staff have asked officials to submit proposals for shrinking the agency’s workforce by between 10 percent and 40 percent by the end of this week, according to two people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. Officials at the National Park Service, which is part of the Interior Department, have sought to find ways of complying with DOGE’s directive without cutting more essential staff at national parks, one of the people said. A spokesperson for Interior declined to comment.
» READ MORE: Nearly 40% of contracts canceled by Musk’s DOGE are expected to produce no savings
At DOGE’s behest, meanwhile, VA plans to cancel 875 contracts, including those that help to provide medical services, recruit doctors and provide burial services to veterans, according to two sources familiar with the move, speaking anonymously because they are not authorized to discuss the issue publicly. One of those contracts provides services needed to safely dispose of chemical waste, while another supports environmental testing to meet safety standards, according to internal records reviewed by The Post. A VA spokesperson said the department “will not be canceling any such contracts.” Veterans Affairs Secretary Douglas A. Collins said the cuts saved $2 billion from inefficiencies such as PowerPoint slides and trainings.
Officials sympathetic to DOGE are now in positions crucial to the disbursement of trillions of dollars in federal funds.
The White House confirmed Tuesday that Amy Gleason, who used to work for the firm founded by DOGE adviser Brad Smith, will be the U.S. DOGE Service administrator. (Musk himself is officially a “special government employee” who’s advising the White House and DOGE’s effort, the administration has said.)
» READ MORE: IRS layoffs include Philadelphia workers
At the Internal Revenue Service, Melanie Krause, an official who had demonstrated a much greater willingness to work with DOGE, was named acting commissioner on Tuesday, replacing a leader more skeptical of Musk’s efforts, according to two people familiar with the matter. At the Treasury Department, Tom Krause, a DOGE affiliate, has been appointed to oversee the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, after the departure of a career civil servant who refused to give Musk’s team access to the sensitive payment system.
And at Social Security, Leland Dudek — a mid-level official who was helping DOGE gain access to key databases — was suddenly named acting commissioner. Dudek has made major changes in less than a week, dismantling a key department that focused on analytics and oversight of agency operations, shifting departments and who they report to, sidelining most of the civil rights office, and killing an office devoted to helping improve customer service. As of Tuesday, Musk’s group had embedded more than 10 tech engineers at the agency.
Still, there have been signs that Musk is being forced to bend to political reality.
Late last week, DOGE staffers informed staff at the Education Department that they needed to make deep cuts in the range of 60 to 75 percent for contracts, including a landmark testing program called the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which the agency had vowed to preserve, according to several people familiar with the matter. Senior staff pushed back, telling DOGE that with cuts that deep, the department could not run the next round of math and reading tests, which are conducted every two years. By Monday, the demand for cuts had shrunk, the people said.
Asked for comment, a department spokeswoman deferred to Lesley Muldoon, executive director of the National Assessment Governing Board, which sets policy for the NAEP. Muldoon said that the board has been working with the agency “to find efficiencies and cost savings” for several years and that this work continues with the Education Department’s new leadership.
Similarly, leaders at the nation’s health department appear to have felt emboldened to defy Musk’s demands after first wrestling over whether to instruct staff to comply. The guidance played out in a series of contradictory messages to the tens of thousands of employees across their agencies. Officials at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services wrote to staff on Saturday evening that staffers “must” reply — before leaders at the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees CMS and other health agencies, reversed course on Monday and said that compliance was not necessary.
The HHS email also warned that workers should be wary of “malign foreign actors” reading their responses to Musk’s email — a subtle acknowledgment of the OPM’s history of cybersecurity breaches, according to a senior HHS official.
At the OPM, which Musk allies are running, officials are walking back the firing of some probationary employees, according to a person briefed on a call the OPM held with agency heads Monday. The OPM told agencies on the call that they should not have fired military spouses, veterans or disabled veterans — and that agencies should work to reinstate those employees, the person said.
A backlash on Capitol Hill appears to be fueling the pushback within the administration. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana), who chairs the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, privately contacted Trump officials to ask for a briefing on DOGE’s impact on his committee’s jurisdiction, saying that he wanted to be prepared to respond to Democrats’ attacks on DOGE’s work, according to someone familiar with the senator’s request.
But as long as Trump allows Musk to continue to pursue broad changes, federal agencies will at least have to watch DOGE’s actions, many analysts point out.
“As long as DOGE has the support of Trump, agency employees are going to have to take everything they say seriously,” said Jessica Riedl, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a center-right think tank. “DOGE has a line of authority that goes straight to the Oval Office, and federal agencies can cross them at their own peril.”