<![CDATA[ Agências americanas sugeriram aos trabalhadores que ignorassem ultimato de Elon Musk ]]>

Elon Musk's order for U.S. government officials to justify the work they did last week has sparked controversy within President Donald Trump's administration. The deadline for responding is 11:59 p.m. Monday.

Shortly after the announcement, government employees, including judges and federal prison staff, received the following email: “Please respond to this email with approximately 5 bullet points of what you accomplished last week and contact your boss. Please do not send any confidential information, links or attachments.”

According to Reuters, Musk's demands on the country's 2.3 million civil servants have raised questions about the authority he can wield in the Trump administration, where he is leading the cost-cutting team.

Trump, however, stood by Musk. “I thought it was great,” he told reporters at the White House. “There was a lot of genius in sending it. We’re trying to figure out if people were working.”

The pushback against Musk’s order by some agency leaders was the first sign of internal resistance to his strong-arm approach to shrinking the federal government.

Senior officials from the departments of Defense, State, Justice and Homeland Security, the FBI and several other agencies have told workers not to respond outside of their work hours.

The Department of Health and Human Services and the Federal Emergency Management Agency initially told workers to cooperate but later refrained.

The Department of Transportation, the Treasury Department and independent agencies like the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission have told employees to respond to Musk's message.

Musk has reveled in the turmoil, even wielding a chainsaw at a conservative political conference last week.

According to two sources, his email was also sent to people appointed to political positions in the White House who presumably would not be viewed with suspicion by the president.

It was also sent to federal judges and other employees of the judicial system, who constitute a separate branch of government and do not answer to the administration.

Musk's downsizing effort has already laid off more than 20,000 workers so far. He has warned that those who fail to comply could also lose their jobs.

“This mess will be resolved this week,” Musk stressed.

Reduction of staff

The confusion echoed the broader turmoil surrounding Trump's return to power.

Since taking office on January 20, Trump has frozen billions of dollars in foreign aid and dismantled the United States Agency for International Development, leaving medicine and food in warehouses.

The US president has ordered employees of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to walk off the job, even though they also received an email from Musk asking them to describe their work activities last week. The Trump administration has separately offered to buy out 75,000 workers.