Treasury Tells IRS Workers to Respond to Job Details Email (2)

A Treasury Department official is telling IRS employees to respond to an Elon Musk-directed email demanding they describe their accomplishments of the last week in five bullet points.

Employees on Monday received an email signed by John W. York, a counselor to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, directing them to reply to the Office of Personnel Management email by the Monday night deadline. Bloomberg Tax obtained a copy of the email.

“The OPM message reflects an effort to increase accountability by the federal workforce, just as there is in the private sector,” York’s email reads. “Given the voluminous and extremely important work that Treasury staff perform on a daily basis, we expect that compliance will not be difficult or time-consuming.”

York oversees the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Management, according to court documents filed as part of a union lawsuit against government agencies over privacy concerns.

Acting IRS Commissioner Doug O’Donnell followed up York’s email Monday, telling employees where to send responses and echoing Treasury’s directions. Bloomberg Tax also received a copy of this email.

The IRS didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

OPM created confusion across the federal workforce after telling workers Feb. 21 to send details of their job tasks. The order, previewed by Musk on his social media platform X, is the latest in a string of measures from the Trump administration to overhaul the federal government. It also appears to violate OPM’s statement in court that its government-wide emails to employees would explicitly say that responses would be voluntary. The email didn’t include such language.

Musk posted on X that “failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.” Unions representing hundreds of thousands of federal workers are suing the administration over the email.

The National Treasury Employees Union is telling members to follow the directions of the Treasury and IRS officials, said David Carrone, chapter president for the Arkansas and Louisiana region. The union initially told members to wait to respond until they received guidance from their agency.

“We’re by all means telling employees to follow directives, even though the directives have changed—yes, no, yes, no,” said Carrone. “When it first came out, each individual management chain came out with different directions in different business units.”

Workers are getting different messages from different agencies. The departments of Defense, State, and Homeland Security as well as the Federal Bureau of Investigation all told workers to disregard the email or wait for further instructions.

York’s email to IRS workers says they shouldn’t reveal “confidential, privileged, otherwise non-public, pre-decision, or deliberative aspects” of their work in their responses. It also advises employees to consult with their managers if they have questions. Employees should respond by the deadline unless they are on leave on Monday.

The IRS also started terminating thousands of employees in their probationary period of less than two years last week. Carrone, a 39-year IRS veteran now considering retirement because of the chaos in the agency, said his chapter represented 300 bargaining employees, but lost 70 in the recent layoffs.