Elon Musk suggested Wednesday that a number of federal employees who did not respond to an email requesting a summary of their achievements from the previous week could be "dead" or "not real people," but offered no facts to back it up.
"We think there are a number of people on the government payroll who are dead, which is probably why they can't respond, and — and some people who are not real people," Musk said.
President Trump echoed Musk's claims moments later to reporters ahead of a cabinet meeting.
"Maybe we're paying people that don't exist," he said.
There is no evidence that the federal payroll includes scores of dead or non-existent people. The White House declined to provide evidence for the claim to CBS News.
Federal laws mandate audits and verification processes to maintain accurate employment records, and the lower rate of response to the email is no doubt due to multiple agencies instructing staff to not reply.
At least half of all federal employees have not responded to the email, which was sent by the Office of Personnel Management on Saturday and came with a deadline of 11:59 p.m. Monday. The heads of numerous agencies, including the Justice Department, the FBI, the State Department, the Pentagon, the Department of Energy, the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, told employees to ignore the email. Those agencies have over 537,000 employees, according to September 2024 employment numbers.
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