Elon Musk defends productivity email as ‘pulse check’ on federal staff: ‘Are they real, are they alive, can they write emails?’

Elon Musk addressed issues over final week’s controversial federal employee productivity email, insisting the directive was not a efficiency evaluation however a fundamental test for indicators of life.
“I think that email was perhaps interpreted as a performance review, but actually it was a pulse check review. Do you have a pulse?” Musk mentioned throughout a Cabinet assembly Wednesday. “And if you have a pulse and two neurons, you could reply to an email.”

The request, despatched in coordination with the Office of Personnel Management, requested over 1 million federal staff to submit a bullet-point listing of their weekly work accomplishments. Musk argued that the train was a needed step to uncover potential fraud throughout the authorities payroll.
“But what we are trying to get to the bottom of is, we think there are a number of people on the government payroll who are dead, which is probably why they can’t respond,” Musk mentioned. “And some people who are not real people … like they’re fictional individuals collecting a paycheck. Well, somebody is collecting paychecks on a fictional individual.”
Musk, serving as a particular advisor to President Trump, tied the initiative to his broader mission of chopping authorities waste.
“We simply cannot sustain a country on $2 trillion deficits,” Musk warned, emphasizing that the US is spending extra on curiosity funds than on the Department of Defense. “If this continues, the country will go bankrupt. It’s not an optional thing.”

Despite acknowledging the extraordinary scrutiny he has confronted, Musk remained assured that DOGE—the Department of Government Efficiency—may obtain $1 trillion in financial savings.
“We do need to move quickly,” Musk mentioned. “If we’re to achieve $1 trillion deficit reduction in financial year 2026, it requires saving $4 billion per day every day from now through the end of September. But we can do it. And we will do it.”