The mass resignation of engineers, data scientists, and product managers is a temporary setback for Musk and the Republican president’s tech-driven purge of the federal workforce.
Musk caused alarm among federal employees over an email sent on Saturday requesting that employees summarize their work.
The federal workforce is on edge after Elon Musk announced they must provide details on the work they accomplished in the last week or face losing their jobs.
The reversal is the latest example of President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk’s chaotic approach to cost-cutting, which has resulted in several agencies firing, and then scrambling to rehire, employees responsible for nuclear weapons, national parks and other government services.