finance
Federal Workers Submitted Job Descriptions in Response to DOGE Efficiency Request Over a Year Ago
Federal employees responded to a Department of Government Efficiency request by explaining their roles, with some expressing frustration. Estimates suggest millions of such emails remain outstanding across government agencies. The initiative has since wound down, but its effects on workers persist.
Audio version
Tap play to generate a narrated version.
Developing·Limited corroboration so far. This page will refresh as more sources emerge.
WASHINGTON — A little over a year ago, the Department of Government Efficiency, guided by Elon Musk, asked federal workers to explain their jobs, prompting a range of responses from detailed schedules to expressions of frustration. Some federal workers took the emails as an opportunity to express their frustration with the assignment. Others detailed the minutiae of their days.
One worker broke down their schedule by hourly and thirty-minute chunks, including lunch breaks. Most emails, however, were simple breakdowns of the work employees accomplished that week; some were brief, others more in-depth about their roles. 9 million outstanding emails from their request covering the entire federal government.
The request by Citizens for Constitutional Integrity included about 3,000 more emails from OPM. Shortly after the email directive was introduced, some federal agencies told their employees they were not required to respond. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in an email to employees in May 2025 that it would pause the requirement while continuing with other types of performance monitoring.
Elon Musk stepped back from his role in DOGE in April 2025. DOGE's efforts have since been wound down, and its cuts have had a lasting impact. While some agencies have rehired staff who were cut, many are still out of work, and others have voluntarily resigned and have not returned.
Rachel Brittin, a former employee at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, was fired, reinstated, and then fired again. Business Insider previously spoke to former federal workers who described how the cuts upended their lives.
