Musk says failure to respond to achievements email will result in sacking – US politics live

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Amid pushback, Musk threatens federal workers with sacking if they fail to reply to email

Hello and welcome to our rolling US politics coverage:

The fallout from Musk’s demand for government workers to justify their work in a bullet-point list continues.

The US Office of Personnel Management (OPM), which manages the federal workforce, walked back on an ultimatum issued by Elon Musk at the weekend that would have forced its workers to resign if they did not submit the requested list of their recent accomplishments.

It marks one of the first signs of internal pushback to the Tesla billionaire’s campaign to downsize the federal workforce.

The OPM announced that responding to Musk’s email was not mandatory and that failing to respond by midnight on Monday would not be considered a resignation, as Musk had warned.

Musk, however, continued to insist that workers will be expected to respond or they would lose their jobs.

“Subject to the discretion of the president, they will be given another chance. Failure to respond a second time will result in termination,” Musk said on Monday afternoon.

Earlier in the day Donald Trump had spoken in support of the demand

“By asking the question, tell us what you did this week, what he’s doing is saying, are you actually working?” the president said.

But the ultimatum had already run into resistance with the FBI, the state department and the Pentagon among the agencies instructing employees not to answer the message. Other department heads advised staff to comply, while some told workers to wait for further guidance before responding.

Attorneys for federal workers said in a lawsuit Musk had violated the law with his weekend demand. An updated lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in California and was provided to the Associated Press, is trying to block mass layoffs.

In other developments:

• Donald Trump said Vladimir Putin would accept European peacekeepers in Ukraine as part of a potential deal to end the three-year war. Trump was speaking alongside French president Emmanuel Macron at the White House as the leaders sought to smooth over a transatlantic rift to achieve peace.

• The Trump-Macron meeting came as the US voted against a United Nations resolution condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, siding with countries such as North Korea, Belarus and Sudan over European allies.

• Trump said the US and Ukraine are “very close” to coming to terms on a rare earth minerals agreement, in comments made during a visit from French president Emmanuel Macron amid European concerns over the US position on Ukraine.

• A federal judge on Monday denied a request by the Associated Press to immediately restore full access to presidential events for the news agency’s journalists, but said the issue required more exploration before ruling. The Trump administration barred the outlet earlier this month for continuing to refer to the Gulf of Mexico in its coverage after the president renamed it the “Gulf of America”.

• 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 labour unions.

• A federal judge has extended protections for trans women in prison. The judge, who blocked the Federal Bureau of Prisons from carrying out Donald Trump’s executive order that would have transferred three incarcerated trans women into men’s facilities earlier this month, has extended protections for nine additional women.

• A federal judge blocked immigration agents from conducting enforcement operations in houses of worship for some religious groups, the Associated Press reported. US district judge Theodore Chang found that the Trump administration policy could violate their religious freedom and should be blocked while a lawsuit challenging it plays out.

• Former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has launched his campaign for Ohio governor.