The revelation comes as federal workers face a midnight deadline to respond. WASHINGTON — Responses to the Elon Musk-directed email to government employees about what work they had accomplished in the last week are expected to be fed into an artificial intelligence system to determine whether those jobs are necessary,

President Donald Trump defended Elon Musk's email demand to federal employees, telling them to explain their recent accomplishments or risk getting fired, even as government agency officials were told that compliance with Musk's edict was voluntary.