Did a viral post stating that the American Federation of Government Employees said that it was "cruel and disrespectful" to have to "justify job duties" accurately summarize the union's statement? No, that's not true: A widely shared post contained only the first part of the quote. In its original post, the union specifically discussed justifying job duties to an "out-of-touch, privileged, unelected billionaire," presumably referring to Elon Musk.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on X, published on February 23, 2025. It read:
An actual quote:
'It is cruel and disrespectful for federal employees to be forced to justify their job duties' -
(Source: X screenshot taken on Mon Feb 24 14:57:50 2025 UTC)
The entry tagged the American Federation Of Government Employees (AFGE) account on X. The post implied that the union representing "800,000 federal and D.C. government workers across the United States and the world," according to its website (archived here), found justifying its members' job duties as "cruel and disrespectful" at all times, regardless of the circumstances.
In reality, however, the AFGE's quote was longer. Its continuation, omitted in the post reviewed in this article, contained additional details clarifying the meaning of the union's statement.
It is cruel and disrespectful for federal employees to be forced to justify their job duties to this out-of-touch, privileged, unelected billionaire who has never performed one single hour of honest public service in his life.
AFGE shared the quote in response to Musk's post published to X on February 22, 2025. He wrote (archived here), "Consistent with President @realDonaldTrump's instructions, all federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week."
Musk also wrote in the same post:
Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.
It is cruel and disrespectful for federal employees to be forced to justify their job duties to this out-of-touch, privileged, unelected billionaire who has never performed one single hour of honest public service in his life. https://t.co/bfGsth9Dp9
-- AFGE (@AFGENational) February 22, 2025
After Musk's announcement, federal employees received (archived here) an email from the Office of Personal Management (archived here) giving them 48 hours to reply with "5 bullets of what you accomplished last week".
On November 12, 2024, then-President-elect Donald Trump announced (archived here) that Musk would "lead" the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. The same statement said the entity would "dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies."
