President Donald Trump called his office in person on Thursday to hand over a message: You are responsible for your departments, not Elon Musk.
According to two administration officials, Trump told senior members of his administration that Musk was authorized to make recommendations to the departments, but not to issue unilateral decisions on staff and policy. Musk was also in the room.
The meeting followed a series of mass dismissals and threats to state workers from the founder of billionaire Tesla, who heads the Ministry of Efficiency of the Government, which created widespread uncertainty in the federal government and its workforce.
Dog’s actions face fierce resistance in court and criticism by democratic MPs and some Republicans.
The president’s message is the first significant move to narrow Musk’s mandate. According to the new Trump’s directions, Dog and his staff have to play an advisory role – but cabinet secretaries must make final decisions on staff, politics and walking.
Musk joined the conversation and indicated that he was on board with the Trump Directive. According to one person familiar with the meeting, Musk admitted that Dodge had taken some wrong steps – a message he shared earlier this week with Congress members.
Trump stressed that he wants to maintain good people in the government, not to throw away massively capable federal workers. But his administration has launched tens of thousands of federal workers in numerous agencies in a series of termination in recent weeks. Federal judge and chairman of the Federal Council for Civil Service and the two concluded that the termination was not tied to the issues of implementation – and may have violated the laws on the civil service.
It is unclear whether the new guidelines will cause workers to be redirected.
Trump has published for the Truth Social meeting after publishing this story, promising to hold similar meetings every two weeks.
“As secretaries learn and understand, people working for the different departments can be very accurate about who will remain and who will go,” he writes. “We say the scalpel, not a” hatch “. The combination of them, elon, dog and other great people will be able to do things at a historical level. “
Trump’s spokesman, Harrison Fields, said Trump “defines the agenda for the whole administration and everyone is committed to fulfilling this mission in a single way.”
The time of the meeting was influenced by recent comments from the leader of the majority in the Senate John Tun (Rs.d.), who said on Tuesday to CNN that cabinet secretaries should retain the full power to hire and fire, according to one employee. The official employee said Trump was flooded with similar concerns by other lawsters and secretaries of the cabinet.
Providing the president to the agency leaders may influence the increasing legal control that Dog is facing.
The judges have increasingly expressed powerlessness and bewilderment at the Trump administration’s inability to explain who is responsible for the efforts to cut off bureaucracy and whether Musk himself plays a role in setting the steep programs and job cuts.
Complicating the issue further, Trump said during his address to the congress on Tuesday that Musk was indeed a “Dodge leader, a label that immediately reflects in several of the court cases focused on the muscles. Trump’s claim, contrary to the White House representation in court last month, that Musk has no independent authority to make political decisions.
The judges will now have to decide whether Trump’s characteristics, after the fact of Musk’s role, resolves the existing legal challenges to Dodge’s work.
It comes just as some of these lawsuits reach a new fact that can lead to greater clarity in the participation of the SPACEX chief in government management.
Last week, a federal judge ordered a sworn testimony from some Dodge and branches for a more fulfillment of the group’s work. And two lawsuits aimed at stopping Musk himself – one in Washington, Colombia County, and one in Maryland – also reach decisive stages.
These lawsuits claim that Musk has exercised a non -constitutional degree of power for a civil servant who has not been confirmed by the Senate.