WASHINGTON — The Senate confirmed retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Dan “Razin” Caine to become the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Friday, filling the position almost two months after President Donald Trump fired his predecessor.

Trump nominated Caine to become the top U.S. military officer in February after abruptly firing Gen. CQ Brown Jr., the second Black general to serve as chairman, as part of his administration’s campaign to rid the military of leaders who support diversity and equity in the ranks. The Senate confirmed Caine 60-25 in an overnight vote before heading home for a two-week recess.

Caine is a decorated F-16 combat pilot who served in leadership in multiple special operations commands, in some of the Pentagon’s most classified programs and in the CIA. He does not meet prerequisites for the job set out in a 1986 law, such as being a combatant commander or service chief. But those requirements can be waived by the president if there is a determination that “such action is necessary in the national interest.”

Caine’s confirmation in the middle of the night, just before the Senate left town, comes as Republicans have been quickly advancing Trump’s nominees and as Democrats have been trying to delay the process and show that they are fighting Trump’s policies. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., set up the early morning vote after Democrats objected to speeding up procedural votes on the nomination.

Still, Caine was confirmed with some bipartisan support. At his confirmation hearing earlier this month, Caine said he would be candid in his advice to Trump and vowed to be apolitical. He disputed Trump’s story that Caine wore a “Make America Great Again” hat when the two first met.

“I have never worn any political merchandise,” he said.

Caine was asked how he would react if ordered to direct the military to do something potentially illegal, such as being used against civilians in domestic law enforcement.

“Will you stand up and push back?” Michigan Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin asked.

“Senator, I think that’s the duty and the job that I have, yes,” Caine said.

Trump’s relationship with Caine dates to his first administration. They met during a trip to Iraq, as Trump recounted in a 2019 speech. He has said Caine is “a real general, not a television general.”

During his first term, Trump’s relationship with then-Chairman Gen. Mark Milley soured as Milley pushed back and took steps to try to prevent what he saw as an attempt to politicize the office. He would remind military service members that they took an oath to the Constitution, not to a president.

Within hours of Trump’s inauguration in January, Milley’s portrait as chairman of the Joint Chiefs was removed from the Pentagon. Milley’s security clearance and security detail also were revoked.

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Associated Press writers Lolita Baldor and Tara Copp contributed to this report.

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea says its military has fired warning shots after North Korean soldiers crossed the border.

South Korea’s military said about 10 North Korean soldiers returned to the North’s territory after South Korea fired made warning broadcasts and fired warning shots.

It says South Korea is closely monitoring North Korean activities.

WASHINGTON — The Army has reenlisted more than 23 soldiers who were discharged for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine, officials said Monday, rushing to implement President Donald Trump’s order that troops be rehired and given back pay.

Three people rejoined active duty Army service, and more than 20 came back either to the National Guard or the Reserve, the Army said. The soldiers have signed their contracts and were sworn in, and the active duty troops were reporting to their units, the Army said.

None of the other services has completed reenlistments yet, but all are reaching out to former troops. The Marine Corps, Air Force, Army and Navy set up new websites on Monday to provide information for service members looking to reenlist. And they are sending letters and emails and making calls to those who were discharged.

Trump has argued that the vaccine mandate wrongly pushed troops out and suggested that many would return. In an executive order signed a week after he took office, Trump said the vaccine mandate cost the military “some of our best people” and he vowed to “rehire every patriot who was fired from the military with … backpay.”

Those who may have been attracted by the offer of back pay will likely get far less money than they initially thought when Trump announced his plan. Under the details of the Pentagon offer, any wages earned during their time as civilians would be deducted from the back pay total, along with other payments they may have received.

The Pentagon made the COVID-19 vaccine mandatory in August 2021 for all service members, including those in the National Guard and Reserve. Then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said getting the vaccine was critical to maintaining a healthy, ready force. The Pentagon dropped the mandate in January 2023.

The initial reenlistments come as the Pentagon last week formally increased the new minimum service commitment from two to four years for those discharged for refusing a lawful order to take the vaccine.

A Feb. 7 memo sent to the secretaries of the military services said troops would be required to sign up for two years. But a memo signed April 1 by Jules Hurst III, who is doing the job of defense undersecretary for personnel, said “reinstatement will not be afforded to those who are unwilling or unable to return to active service or active status, as applicable, for four years.”

The Army said the bulk of the soldiers who reenlisted were those ordered out for refusing the shot, and they signed on for four years. They will be entitled to get some back pay. Several, however, left the Army voluntarily to avoid the shot, so they are allowed to reenlist for two years and will not get back pay.

According to the new memo, there is an exception for anyone who would have been eligible for retirement within two years of the date they were originally discharged. Those service members also can reenlist for at least two years.

Roughly 8,200 troops were discharged for refusing to obey the vaccine order. They have been allowed to rejoin since 2023, but that did not include any back pay. Just 113 reenlisted.

The Army and Marine Corps have been sending out emails, texts and phone calls to service members for several weeks. The Navy and the Air Force had been waiting for the additional guidance.

According to Army spokesman Christopher Surridge, about 400 soldiers have inquired so far about the reenlistment program. Of those, about 100 are in the application process. The Army did not have estimates on how much it has given the soldiers in total back pay.

As of Friday, 472 Marines have indicated interest in learning more about returning. The Navy said about a half dozen sailors had so far expressed interest or sought more information, and the Air Force said it had not yet gotten any feedback from service members.

The limited interest reflects what service leaders said early on, which was that many troops used the vaccine as a reason to leave and have moved on with their lives.

Those eligible for back pay could get an amount that includes their basic salary, bonus payments, cost-of-living allowances and some health benefit costs. But that total will be reduced by any wages, veterans benefits, separation payments, debts and other amounts that were earned during that time.

Service members will have to provide verified tax records and other paperwork as part of the process.

According to the memo, the services must provide each person with an estimate of the amount of back pay they will receive. Service members will then have 60 days to decide whether to reenlist.

Everyone who wants to reenlist must meet all military standards, including health, fitness and moral requirements. Service members have until Feb. 28, 2026, to seek reinstatement.

VILNIUS, Lithuania — A procession carrying the coffins of four American soldiers who died during a training exercise in Lithuania will proceed past the capital’s cathedral square Thursday.

Government officials and religious leaders are expected to pay their last respects before the bodies are taken to the airport to be returned to the U.S.

The soldiers, part of the 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, were on a tactical training exercise when they and their vehicle went missing a week ago, the Army said.

Lithuanian, Polish and U.S. soldiers and rescuers searched through the forests and swamps at the Gen. Silvestras Žukauskas training ground in the town of Pabradė, 6 miles (10 kilometers) west of the border with Belarus. The M88 Hercules armored vehicle was pulled from a peat bog Monday and the final body was recovered Tuesday.

The U.S. Army has identified the four as Staff Sgt. Troy S. Knutson-Collins, 28, of Battle Creek, Michigan; Staff Sgt. Jose Duenez Jr., 25, of Joliet, Illinois; Staff Sgt. Edvin F. Franco, 25, of Glendale, California; and Pfc. Dante D. Taitano, 21, of Dededo, Guam.

Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda, the defense minister and the Vilnius archbishop are expected to attend Thursday’s ceremony.

An honor platoon from 3rd Infantry Division will also pay tribute to the soldiers, Maj. Nicholas Chopp, the deputy media chief for U.S. Army Europe and Africa, told The Associated Press.

A Lithuanian nonprofit that helps Ukrainian war refugees has asked residents of Vilnius to attend the ceremony and pause for a moment when the coffins pass by to pay their respects. “Even though it’s a workday, let’s not remain indifferent … bow your head, and honor the US soldiers who lost their lives during training while preparing to defend our freedom, standing true to their oath, giving their all, to the very end,” Stiprus Kartu, or Strong Together, wrote on Facebook.

About 3,500 soldiers from the 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team deployed in January to Poland and the Baltic states for a nine-month rotation as part of Operation Atlantic Resolve, which supports NATO allies and partners following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

WASHINGTON — U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio travels this week to a gathering of top diplomats from NATO countries and is sure to find allies that are alarmed, angered and confused by the Trump administration’s desire to reestablish ties with Russia and its escalating rhetorical attacks on longtime transatlantic partners.

Allies are deeply concerned by President Donald Trump’s readiness to draw closer to Russian leader Vladimir Putin, who sees NATO as a threat, amid a U.S. effort to broker a ceasefire in Ukraine. Recent White House comments and insults directed at NATO allies Canada and Denmark — as well as the military alliance itself — have only increased the angst, especially as new U.S. tariffs are taking effect against friends and foes alike.

Rubio arrives in Brussels on Thursday for two days of meetings with his NATO counterparts and European officials, and he can expect to be confronted with questions about the future U.S. role in the alliance.

For 75 years, NATO has been anchored on American leadership, and based on what they have seen and heard since Trump took office in January, European officials have expressed deep concerns that Trump may upend all of that when he and other NATO leaders meet for a June summit in the Netherlands.

As Rubio did last month at a meeting of foreign ministers from the Group of 7 industrialized democracies, America’s top diplomat, who is regarded by many overseas as a more pragmatic and less dogmatic member of Trump’s administration, may be able to salvage a watered-down group consensus on the war in Ukraine.

That’s even as Trump said this week that Ukraine “was never going to be a member of NATO” despite leaders declaring at last year’s summit that the country was on an “irreversible” path to join.

But Rubio will be hard-pressed to explain Washington’s unprovoked verbal attacks on NATO allies Canada, which Trump says he wants to claim as a 51st state, and Denmark, whose territory of Greenland he says the U.S. should annex. Both have been accused of being “bad allies” by Trump and Vice President JD Vance.

“It’s pretty clear neither territory has any interest in joining a Trumpian America,” said Ian Kelly, U.S. ambassador to Georgia during the Obama and first Trump administration and now an international studies professor at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.

“There’s going to be a lot of very anxious Euros about what Trump is going to call for and what announcements he’s going to make,” he said. “If he isn’t already, Rubio is going to be in a mode of trying to reassure European allies that we are not, in fact, not dependable.”

Yet, in just under two months, NATO has been shaken to its core, challenged increasingly by Russia and the biggest land war in Europe since 1945 from the outside, and by the Trump administration from within, breaking with decades of relatively predictable U.S. leadership.

Trump has consistently complained about NATO members’ defense spending and even raised doubts about the U.S. commitment to mutual defense in the alliance’s founding treaty, which says an attack on one NATO member is considered an attack on all.

Since Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth warned last month that U.S. security priorities lie elsewhere — in Asia and on its own borders — the Europeans have waited to learn how big a military drawdown in Europe could be and how fast it may happen.

In Europe and Canada, governments are working on “burden shifting” plans to take over more of the load, while trying to ensure that no security vacuum is created if U.S. troops and equipment are withdrawn from the continent.

These allies are keen to hear from Rubio what the Trump administration’s intentions are and hope to secure some kind of roadmap that lays out what will happen next and when, so they can synchronize planning and use European forces to plug any gaps.

At the same time, NATO’s deterrent effect against an adversary like Russia is only credible when backed by U.S. firepower. For the Europeans and Canada, this means that U.S. nuclear weapons and the 6th Fleet must remain stationed in Europe.

“America is indispensable for credible deterrence,” a senior NATO diplomat told reporters on condition of anonymity to speak ahead of the meeting.

Around 100,000 U.S. troops are deployed across the continent. European allies believe at least 20,000 personnel sent by the Biden administration after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine three years ago could be withdrawn.

Another priority for U.S. allies is to understand whether Trump believes that Russia still poses the greatest security threat. In their summit statement last year, NATO leaders insisted that “Russia remains the most significant and direct threat to Allies’ security.”

But Trump’s receptiveness to Putin and recent favorable remarks by some U.S. officials have raised doubts. The question, diplomats say, is why allies should spend 5% of their gross domestic product on their defense budgets if Russia is no longer a threat.

At the same time, the Europeans and Canada know they must spend more — not least to protect themselves and keep arming Ukraine. At their next summit in June, NATO leaders are expected to raise the alliance’s military budget goal from at least 2% to more than 3%.

Rubio “is in a very difficult position,” said Jeff Rathke, president of the American-German Institute at Johns Hopkins University. Trump “has tried to convince allies that a U.S. realignment with Russia is in the best interests of the U.S. and presumably Europe, and at the same time tell them that they need to double their defense spending to deal with threats posed by Russia,” he said. “The logical question they will ask is ‘why?’”

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Cook reported from Brussels.

VILNIUS, Lithuania — A U.S. armored vehicle that went missing in Lithuania has been retrieved from a swamp after a six-day search but there is still no information about the fate of the four American soldiers who were on board, Lithuanian officials said Monday.

“The armored vehicle was pulled ashore at 4:40 a.m., the towing operation is complete, Lithuanian Military Police and US investigators continue their work,” Defense Minister Dovilė Šakalienė said Monday morning in a post on Facebook.

The soldiers were on a training exercise at the massive General Silvestras Žukauskas training ground in the town of Pabradė when they and their vehicle were reported missing in the early hours of Tuesday morning, the U.S. army said.

“Until the investigators have more details, we need to stay calm and focused, and keep in mind the sensitivity of the situation and the concerns of the soldiers’ families,” Šakalienė posted on Facebook.

She made clear to reporters that the first information about fate of the soldiers will be delivered by the U.S. army.

The soldiers, all from 1st Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, were conducting tactical training when they went missing.

Hundreds of Lithuanian and U.S. soldiers and rescuers took part in the search through the thick forests and swampy terrain around Pabradė, which lies just 10 kilometers (6 miles) west of the border with Belarus. The M88 Hercules armored vehicle was discovered on Wedneday submerged in 4.5 meters (15 feet) of water.

A large-scale recovery operation got underway but “water, thick mud and soft ground around the site have complicated recovery efforts and have required specialized equipment to drain water from the side and stabilize the ground” in order to pull the 70-ton vehicle ashore, the army said.

KYIV, Ukraine — Russian drones pummeled the Ukrainian Black Sea port city of Odesa, injuring three people and sparking massive fires, officials said Friday, an attack that underlined Moscow’s intention to pursue aerial attacks even as it agreed to temporarily halt strikes on energy facilities.

The strike came shortly before Czech Republic President Peter Pavel visited Odesa early Friday morning and held meetings with the city’s leaders and officials from other southern regions.

“This is another reminder to the whole world: the war continues and Ukraine continues to fight,” the head of the Odesa region, Oleh Kiper, said in a statement.

He reported blazes at at least three locations after the attack late Thursday. “Civilian infrastructure, commercial facilities are on fire, cars damaged,” Kiper said.

Over 70 people and 20 fire engines were involved in extinguishing what the emergency services called “massive fires.”

In another attack, Russian glide bombs injured at least six people, including a child, in the Zaporizhzhia region overnight Thursday to Friday. Regional head Ivan Fedorov published photos showing fire fighters extinguishing flames at multiple damaged residential buildings.

The Ukrainian air force reported that Russia fired 214 exploding drones and decoys in the latest wave of attacks. It said 114 of them were intercepted and another 81 were jammed.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said air defenses shot down 43 Ukrainian drones, 34 of them over the Volgograd region and others over Rostov, Kursk and Belgorod regions. The authorities didn’t report any casualties or significant damage.

Meanwhile, a massive blaze at an oil depot in the Krasnodar region has continued to rage since it was hit by a Ukrainian drone attack late Wednesday.

Ukraine and Russia agreed in principle Wednesday to a limited ceasefire after U.S. President Donald Trump spoke with the countries’ leaders this week, though it remained to be seen what possible targets would be off limits to attack.

After a roughly hourlong call with Trump on Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told reporters that “technical” talks in Saudi Arabia this weekend would seek to resolve what types of infrastructure would be protected from attack under the agreement.

The three sides appeared to hold starkly different views about what the deal covered. While the White House said “energy and infrastructure” would be covered, the Kremlin declared that the agreement referred more narrowly to “energy infrastructure.” Zelenskyy said he would also like railways and ports to be protected.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov emphasized Friday that the agreement reached between Trump and Putin referred only to energy facilities, adding that the Russian military is fulfilling Putin’s order to halt such attacks for 30 days.

“The Russian military are currently refraining from strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in accordance with the agreement reached between Russia and the United States,” Peskov said in a conference call with reporters.

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea fired several ballistic missiles into the sea Monday, South Korea’s military said, hours after South Korean and U.S. troops kicked off their large annual combined drills, which the North views as an invasion rehearsal.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the missile firings, North Korea’s fifth missile launch event this year, were detected from the North’s southwestern Hwanghae province but gave no further details such as how far they flew. It said South Korea bolstered its surveillance posture and is closely coordinating with the United States.

Earlier Monday, the South Korean and U.S. militaries began their annual Freedom Shield command post exercise, their first major combined training of President Donald Trump’s second term. The allies have already been engaging in diverse field training exercises in connection with the Freedom Shield training.

North Korea’s Foreign Ministry warned Monday the Freedom Shield training risks triggering “physical conflict” on the Korean Peninsula. It called the training an “aggressive and confrontational war rehearsal” and reiterated leader Kim Jong Un’s stated goals for a “radical growth” of his nuclear force to counter what he claims as growing threats posed by the U.S. and its Asian allies.

This year’s training came after the South Korean and U.S. militaries paused live-fire training while Seoul investigates how its fighter jets mistakenly bombed a civilian area during a warm-up drill last week.

About 30 people were injured, two of them seriously, when two South Korean KF-16 fighter jets mistakenly fired eight MK-82 bombs on a civilian area in Pocheon, a town near the North Korean border, on Thursday. The bombing occurred while South Korean and U.S. forces were engaging in a live-fire drill ahead of the Freedom Shield exercise.

The initial assessment from the South Korean air force was that one of the KF-16 pilots entered the wrong coordinates and failed to visually verify the target before proceeding with the bombing. The second pilot had the correct coordinates but focused only on maintaining flight formation and dropped the bombs on the first pilot’s instructions with recognizing the target was wrong, according to the content of the latest briefing provided to The Associated Press.

Gen. Lee Youngsu, chief of staff of the South Korean air force, bowed and apologized Monday over the injuries and property damage caused by the bombing, which he said “should have never happened and must never happen again.”

Both the South Korean and U.S. militaries have halted all live-fire exercises in South Korea following the mistake. South Korean military officials say live-fire training will resume after they complete the investigation of the bombing and form preventative steps.

WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has paused offensive cyberoperations against Russia by U.S. Cyber Command, rolling back some efforts to contend with a key adversary even as national security experts call for the U.S. to expand those capabilities.

A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive operations, on Monday confirmed the pause.

Hegseth’s decision does not affect cyberoperations conducted by other agencies, including the CIA and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. But the Trump administration also has rolled back other efforts at the FBI and other agencies related to countering digital and cyber threats.

The Pentagon decision, which was first reported by The Record, comes as many national security and cybersecurity experts have urged greater investments in cyber defense and offense, particularly as China and Russia have sought to interfere with the nation’s economy, elections and security.

Republican lawmakers and national security experts have all called for a greater offensive posture. During his Senate confirmation hearing this year, CIA Director John Ratcliffe said America’s rivals have shown that they believe cyberespionage — retrieving sensitive information and disrupting American business and infrastructure — to be an essential weapon of the modern arsenal.

“I want us to have all of the tools necessary to go on offense against our adversaries in the cyber community,” Ratcliffe said.

Cyber Command oversees and coordinates the Pentagon’s cybersecurity work and is known as America’s first line of defense in cyberspace. It also plans offensive cyberoperations for potential use against adversaries.

Hegseth’s directive arrived before Friday’s dustup between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office. It wasn’t clear if the pause was tied to any negotiating tactic by the Trump administration to push Moscow into a peace deal with Ukraine.

Trump has vowed to end the war that began when Russia invaded Ukraine three years ago, and on Monday he slammed Zelenskyy for suggesting the end to the conflict was “far away.”

The White House did not immediately respond to questions about Hegseth’s order.

Cyber warfare is cheaper than traditional military force, can be carried out covertly and doesn’t carry the same risk of escalation or retaliation, making it an increasingly popular tool for nations that want to contend with the U.S. but lack the traditional economic or military might, according to Snehal Antani, CEO of Horizon3.ai, a San Francisco-based cybersecurity firm founded by former national security officers.

Cyberespionage can allow adversaries to steal competitive secrets from American companies, obtain sensitive intelligence or disrupt supply chains or the systems that manage dams, water plants, traffic systems, private companies, governments and hospitals.

The internet has created new battlefields, too, as nations like Russia and China use disinformation and propaganda to undermine their opponents.

Artificial intelligence now makes it easier and cheaper than ever for anyone — be it a foreign nation like Russia, China or North Korea or criminal networks — to step up their cybergame at scale, Antani said. Fixing code, translating disinformation or identifying network vulnerabilities once required a human — now AI can do much of it faster.

“We are entering this era of cyber-enabled economic warfare that is at the nation-state level,” Antani said. “We’re in this really challenging era where offense is significantly better than defense, and it’s going to take a while for defense to catch up.”

Meanwhile, Attorney General Pam Bondi also has disbanded an FBI task force focused on foreign influence campaigns, like those Russia used to target U.S. elections in the past. And more than a dozen people who worked on election security at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency were put on leave.

These actions are leaving the U.S. vulnerable despite years of evidence that Russia is committed to continuing and expanding its cyber efforts, according to Liana Keesing, campaigns manager for technology reform at Issue One, a nonprofit that has studied technology’s impact on democracy.

“Instead of confronting this threat, the Trump administration has actively taken steps to make it easier for the Kremlin to interfere in our electoral processes,” Keesing said.

WASHINGTON — Attorneys for federal workers said Monday in a lawsuit that billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk had violated the law with his weekend demand that employees explain their accomplishments or risk being fired.

The updated lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in California and was provided to The Associated Press, is trying to block mass layoffs pursued by Musk and President Donald Trump, including any connected to the email distributed by the Office of Personnel Management on Saturday. The office, which functions as a human resources agency for the federal government, said employees needed to detail five things that they did last week by end of day on Monday.

“No OPM rule, regulation, policy, or program has ever, in United States history, purported to require all federal workers to submit reports to OPM,” said the amended complaint, which was filed on behalf of unions, businesses veterans, and conservation organizations represented by the group State Democracy Defenders Fund. It called the threat of mass firings “one of the most massive employment frauds in the history of this country.”

Musk, who’s leading the Republican president’s efforts to overhaul and downsize the federal government, continued to threaten federal workers on Monday morning even as confusion spread through the administration and some top officials told employees not to comply.

“Those who do not take this email seriously will soon be furthering their career elsewhere,” Musk posted on X, his social media platform.

He also escalated Trump’s demand for employees to stop working remotely.

“Starting this week, those who still fail to return to office will be placed on administrative leave,” Musk posted.

The latest round of turmoil began over the weekend, when Trump posted on Truth Social, his social media website, that “ELON IS DOING A GREAT JOB, BUT I WOULD LIKE TO SEE HIM GET MORE AGGRESSIVE.”

Musk followed up by saying “all federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week.” He claimed that “failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.” The directive echoed how the billionaire entrepreneur has managed his own companies.

The Office of Personnel Management sent out its own request afterwards.

“Please reply to this email with approx. 5 bullets of what you accomplished last week and cc your manager,” the message said. However, it said nothing about the potential for employees to get fired for noncompliance. The deadline was listed as 11:59 p.m. EST on Monday.

There was swift resistance from several key U.S. agencies led by the president’s loyalists — including the FBI, the State Department, Homeland Security and the Pentagon — which instructed their employees over the weekend not to respond. Lawmakers in both major political parties said Musk’s mandate may be illegal, while unions threatened to sue.

One message on Sunday morning from the Department of Health and Human Services, led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., instructed its roughly 80,000 employees to comply. That was shortly after the acting general counsel, Sean Keveney, had instructed some not to. And by Sunday evening, agency leadership issued new instructions that employees should “pause activities” related to the request until noon on Monday.

“I’ll be candid with you. Having put in over 70 hours of work last week advancing Administration’s priorities, I was personally insulted to receive the below email,” Keveney said in an email viewed by the AP that acknowledged a broad sense of “uncertainty and stress” within the agency.

Keveney laid out security concerns and pointed out some of the work done by the agency’s employees may be protected by attorney-client privilege.

Democrats and even some Republicans, including Sen. John Curtis of Utah, were critical of Musk’s ultimatum.

“If I could say one thing to Elon Musk, it’s like, ‘Please put a dose of compassion in this,’” Curtis, whose state has 33,000 federal employees, said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “These are real people. These are real lives. These are mortgages. … It’s a false narrative to say we have to cut and you have to be cruel to do it as well.”

Newly confirmed FBI Director Kash Patel, an outspoken Trump ally, instructed employees to ignore Musk’s request, at least for now.

“The FBI, through the Office of the Director, is in charge of all of our review processes, and will conduct reviews in accordance with FBI procedures,” Patel wrote in an email confirmed by the AP. “When and if further information is required, we will coordinate the responses. For now, please pause any responses.”

Ed Martin, interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, sent his staff a message Sunday that may have caused more confusion.

“Let me clarify: We will comply with this OPM request whether by replying or deciding not to reply,” Martin wrote in the email.

“Please make a good faith effort to reply and list your activities (or not, as you prefer), and I will, as I mentioned, have your back regarding any confusion,” Martin continued. “We can do this.”

Officials at the Departments of State, Defense and Homeland Security were more consistent.

Tibor Nagy, acting undersecretary of state for management, told employees in an email that department leadership would respond on behalf of workers.

Pentagon leadership instructed employees to “pause” any response to Musk’s team, according to an email from Jules Hurst, the deputy undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness.

The Homeland Security Department, meanwhile, told employees that “no reporting action from you is needed at this time” and that agency managers would respond, according to an email from R.D. Alles, deputy undersecretary for management.

Thousands of government employees have already been forced out of the federal workforce — either by being fired or through a “deferred resignation″ offer — during the first month of Trump’s second term. There is no official figure available for the total firings or layoffs so far, but the AP has tallied hundreds of thousands of workers who are being affected. Many work outside of Washington.

Musk on Sunday called his latest request “a very basic pulse check.”

“The reason this matters is that a significant number of people who are supposed to be working for the government are doing so little work that they are not checking their email at all!” Musk wrote on X. “In some cases, we believe non-existent people or the identities of dead people are being used to collect paychecks. In other words, there is outright fraud.”

He has provided no evidence of such fraud. Separately, Musk and Trump have falsely claimed in recent days that tens of millions of dead people over 100 years old are receiving Social Security payments.

Meanwhile, thousands of other employees are preparing to leave the federal workforce this coming week, including probationary civilian workers at the Pentagon and all but a fraction of U.S. Agency for International Development staffers through cuts or leave.

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Associated Press writers Steve Peoples in New York, Eric Tucker, Amanda Seitz, Byron Tau, Ellen Knickmeyer, Matthew Perrone and Tara Copp in Washington and Valerie Gonzalez in McAllen, Texas, contributed to this report.