United States Health Agency now requires employees to respond to Elon Musk's emails

The United States Department of Health and Human Services has changed its policy, now requiring employees to respond to weekly emails. This includes staff at the Food and Drug Administration and the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (via Reuters).

The emails, coming from the Department of Government Efficiency, aim to assess the performance of government employees and are backed by billionaire Elon Musk and the Trump administration.

Initially, staff had been assured that replying was optional and would not affect their employment, but a new directive issued on Monday instructed them to submit a response by midnight, coordinating with supervisors to ensure compliance.

Employees were advised to keep their summaries broad, avoiding the disclosure of sensitive information, a shift from earlier warnings that responses might be accessed by foreign entities.

The department even revised its own communication twice in a single day, scrubbing references to security risks in the final version, signalling a chaotic rollout of the policy. For now, it remains to be seen how employees will react to this abrupt reversal.