Defense Department civilian employees will no longer need to submit a weekly bulleted list of what they accomplished, which the Department of Government Efficiency had demanded of federal employees starting in February.
In an email to the Pentagon’s civilian workforce, Jay Hurst, who is performing the duties of undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, said the “five bullet exercise” will no longer be required and that employees should instead submit at least one idea by Wednesday to help improve efficiency or root out waste at the Defense Department.
Other agencies have also begun to end the weekly reports, including the National Institutes of Health last month.
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Workers had been required to submit weekly reports justifying their employment by listing five things they did the previous week, as part of efforts by billionaire Elon Musk and DOGE — which had been led by Musk — to eliminate waste in the federal government.
Musk, who recently announced he is stepping back from DOGE and focusing more on his companies, Tesla, SpaceX and the social media platform X, said on Feb. 22 that federal employees would be required to start sending weekly reports of what they accomplished to the Office of Personnel Management as well as their managers.
“Consistent with President @realDonaldTrump’s instructions, all federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week,” Musk wrote on X at the time.
“Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation,” he emphasized.
Some agencies, including the Defense Department, the State Department and the FBI, initially told employees to hold off on submitting the reports.
Days later, the Office of Personnel Management told human resources officers across the government that the emailed reports were voluntary, according to The Washington Post.
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Officials at the agency also said they did not plan to do anything with the emails they received.
But Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth sent a memorandum on Feb. 28 instructing all Pentagon civilian employees to submit the weekly emails requested by DOGE.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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