Pentagon orders civilian staff to justify work in Musk-led review

By Idrees Ali and Phil Stewart

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon told its civilian employees that they must provide a list of five bullet points detailing their accomplishments from the previous week, after initially saying they did not need to respond to the demand by cost-cutting czar Elon Musk.

The memo, signed by U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and dated February 27, follows days of confusion over whether federal workers needed to reply to the Musk-inspired email last weekend from the Office of Personnel Management, the U.S. government's human resources department.

Despite some agency heads telling staff they did not need to comply with the email, Musk was undeterred and said workers would have "another chance" to respond to his ultimatum that they justify their jobs or risk termination.

Musk, a tech billionaire who was the biggest donor to Trump's election campaign, is overseeing an unprecedented and rapid downsizing of the U.S. government that has included the dismantling of entire departments and the sacking of tens of thousands of staff across the country.

Last weekend, the Pentagon had told staff to ignore the initial OPM email that was sent on Saturday. But the new memo said Pentagon civilian employees must reply to a new email they will get on Monday.

"Submissions must exclude classified or sensitive information," the memo seen by Reuters said. It said that if employees did not reply, it may lead to "further review."

The Pentagon has some 950,000 civilian employees. Last week, the Pentagon said it would start cutting 5,400 jobs as part of Trump's drive to slash the federal workforce.

The Pentagon declined to comment.

(Reporting by Idrees Ali and Phil Stewart; Editing by Ross Colvin and Andrea Ricci)