EXCLUSIVE: Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency advisers are quick to ask federal employees what they did last year, and most employees are unconcerned.
According to a poll conducted by J. L. Partners on Wednesday, 55 % of workers would rate the “five things” email that Musk and DOGE sent federal employees earlier this month as “reasonable,” while 39 % would label it as “unreasonable.”
In general, 44 % of respondents to the poll said the email was unreasonable, while 44 % said it was reasonable.
However, the survey, which was conducted prior to the federal employees receiving a second email next weekend with a deadline for submitting a list of five jobs they had completed over the weekend, revealed that the majority of female respondents thought the first email was acceptable.
Additionally, the initial email was acceptable for a large number of people who are younger than 50 years old, college graduates, people who identify as white or black, people who work for themselves, and those who earn more than$ 75, 000 annually.
Only 41 % of independents thought the email was reasonable, compared to 45 % of those who didn’t, despite there being a partisan divide between Democratic and Republican respondents. Only 24 % of Democrats shared the same opinion with Republicans, who only had 24 %.
Latino or Spanish responders had the other most glaring differences. Only 35 % of the respondents said they would support the email, compared to 55 % who wouldn’t.
The most intriguing finding for J. L. Partners co-founder James Johnson was regarding workers, whose polling company had the most appropriate estimates design of the 2024 vote.
Respondents were also asked if they would have found the email to be affordable if they had received it from their employer. Overall, 33 % of respondents said it was not reasonable, while 41 % said it was. Among the employees, 37 % said it was not reasonable, and 50 % said it was.
The typical American worker believes it is a fair ask, Johnson told the Washington Examiner.” Musk’s contact perhaps have caused panic in the federal government, and even the Cabinet. ” Those employees in the real world believe it is sensible that they would even find their own boss sending the internet a good ask, and that they could respond to it themselves.”
More than 1 million of the federal government’s 2.4 million people, excluding military officers, responded to DOGE’s primary message last week, according to the White House. The Office of Personnel Management sent the following message outlining the organization’s obligation to respond to similar letters forever.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Attorney General Pam Bondi requested their employees respond to the next message despite the orders from the Pentagon and the Justice Department to do so. For their employees, the State Department and FBI made alternative agreements.
Trump and Musk have defended the letters, touting the confusion they created by arguing that they are not” a signal check , review” but” a signal check , review,” at least in the terms of the businessman Tesla, SpaceX, and X investor.
At last week’s Cabinet meeting at the White House, Musk stated,” We are trying to get to the bottom of this because we think there are a number of people on the pay who are dead, which is probably why they can’t respond,” and that some of these people aren’t real people. You can email to an email if you have a signal and two cells.
Trump said,” Those million people who haven’t responded, Elon, they are on the balloon… Those individuals are on the balloon as they say, maybe they’re going to be gone.”
For a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percent items, J. L. Partners polled a nationally representative sample of 1, 001 registered citizens online between February 24 and February 25.
