Federal Employees Receive Second Set of ‘Pulse Check’ Emails Asking for Lists of Their Achievements
Approximately 1 million of the 2.3 million federal employees replied to the initial email.
Federal employees have been sent a second set of emails described by the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Elon Musk, as “pulse check” emails, which require employees to list five achievements from the previous week.
“Please respond to this email with approximately 5 bullet points summarizing what you accomplished last week and cc your manager. Moving forward, please complete this task each week by Mondays at 11:59pm ET,” the email, sent on the evening of February 28, states.
The email further instructed: “Please refrain from sending links, attachments, or any classified/sensitive information. If all of your tasks are classified or sensitive, please indicate ‘All of my activities are sensitive.’”
It remains uncertain whether all agencies received the identical email.
“I think that email might have been viewed as a performance review, but it was actually a pulse check review. Do you have a pulse?” Musk remarked during a Cabinet meeting at the White House on February 27. “And if you have a pulse and two neurons, you could respond to an email.”
Trump has vowed to reform the federal workforce, stating in a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference near Washington on February 22 that he intends to enforce stricter attendance policies, abolish remote work privileges, and scrutinize government employees for outside employment.
“How many jobs have you held? Who compensated you while you were serving in government?” Trump inquired, declaring that his administration demands information on whether federal workers are engaging in secondary employment, with the “pulse check” email potentially correlating with that initiative—or the broader aim to reform the federal bureaucracy.
“We aim to make government smaller and more efficient. We wish to retain the best personnel and we will not keep underperformers,” Trump declared at the time.
Trump established DOGE to streamline governmental functions and eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse in federal spending. The agency is mandated for 18 months, with a goal of reducing federal spending by $2 trillion before its scheduled closure on Independence Day 2026.