WASHINGTON — As thousands of federal employees are at risk of layoffs in the coming weeks, Sen. John Curtis, R-Utah, is urging Elon Musk to implement a “dose of compassion” and treat employees with dignity as they exit the workforce.
In a Deseret News opinion piece published Saturday, Curtis pointed to his own experience as the former mayor of Provo, Utah, during which the city faced drastic financial struggles in 2012. In response, Curtis had to reduce the city government by 8%, resulting in a number of employees losing their jobs.
Curtis spoke about the opinion piece and Musk’s latest moves in an interview with CBS News’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday.
Tensions flared after an email was sent out to federal employees ahead of the weekend asking for an overview of tasks completed the week prior — after which Musk suggested on X that a failure to respond would be considered a resignation notice. The missive set off a firestorm of anger and confusion online as employees questioned the legality of such a requirement and others decrying it as disrespectful.
“It’s not unusual in a corporate setting to have people report and explain what they’re doing, especially if they’re working from home,” Curtis said during his CBS interview. “But I will double down on the fact we don’t need to be so cold and hard. Let’s put a little compassion and quite frankly, dignity in this as well.”
Curtis said when he laid off employees in Provo, he spoke with each of them in person to inform them of the job loss and to provide resources to land on their feet elsewhere — something that must be taken into consideration when applying similar layoffs to the federal government, he said.
“It’s a false narrative to say, we have to cut and you have to be cruel to do it as well,” Curtis said. “We can do both.”
“If I could say one thing to Elon Musk, it’s: Please put a dose of compassion in this,” Curtis added. “These are real people. These are real lives, these are mortgages.”
Curtis’ call for compassion was picked up by other outlets like Politico and The Hill.
He then appeared on CNN Monday, on “The Lead with Jake Tapper,” where he reiterated his call for compassion and said it was a “false choice” to say the government can’t both make cuts and “do them the right way as well.”
Curtis returned to another theme from his op-ed on CNN. Cuts are necessary to tackle the nation’s $36 trillion debt, but, he said, without including “federal spending deemed ‘untouchable’ — primarily Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid — we’ll never achieve a balanced budget.”
Confusion over whether to respond to Musk’s email
Even with Musk’s demands for federal employees to recap their weekly accomplishments, several agencies have since advised workers not to respond, including the FBI and Departments of Defense, State, Energy, Homeland Security, and Health and Human Services. Others have listed the directive as voluntary.
But President Donald Trump endorsed the directive on Monday, calling the email “ingenious” and warning that “if you don’t answer, you’re sort of semi-fired or you’re fired.”
The lack of clarity has left several federal employees confused and unsure of how to proceed. Other lawmakers decried the suggestions as irreverent toward government employees.
“Our public workforce deserves to be treated with dignity and respect for the unheralded jobs they perform,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, wrote in a statement. “The absurd weekend email to justify their existence wasn’t it.”