In a recent move from the Trump administration and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), federal workers are now receiving emails from DOGE.

The most recent email asking federal workers to list out their recent accomplishments at work, or risk being fired.

“I think that email was misinterpreted as a performance review, but actually it was a pulse check review. Do you have a pulse?” said Elon Musk.

Ruark Hotopp is the National Vice President of the American Federation of Government Employees district 8 and represents around 18,000 federal employees in Minnesota.

Hotopp told WDIO News that these emails have been causing wide scale panic among federal employees.

“It’s kind of a clever little ploy for them, right? Like, this shouldn’t be that hard. ‘Why can’t you just tell me five things you did last week?'”, said Ruark Hotopp. “Every federal agency has massive reporting requirements, because we’re subject to congressional oversight and congressional inquiries. So, all of the federal agencies have two, three, four reporting systems in which we provide data for Congress to provide the oversight to our agencies. So, to be asked, ‘hey, just list us five things you did last week,’ well, they already have access to all of that information.”

These emails along with recent firings are leaving federal employees unsure of the future of their careers.

“They’re very much lost and confused,” said Hotopp. “I talked to a guy the other day that moved from Texas to Iowa to take a job at the VA. He had been there for about three months when he received one of these letters saying he was a poor performer, so ‘we’re going to get rid of you’. He showed me his performance appraisal where it’s the exact opposite. He actually had very high marks. But he signed a one-year lease at his apartment in Des Moines and he’s going, ‘well, now I’m stuck here in Iowa with no friends, no family, no support system, and now no job.'”

The American Federation of Government Employees has taken legal action against some of the recent actions of DOGE.

You can learn more about the American Federation of Government Employees here.