Live updates: Trump praises Elon Musk in first Cabinet meeting of second term

President Donald Trump on the federal workers who haven’t responded to Musk’s email: “Those million people that haven’t responded though, Elon, they are on the bubble … maybe they’re gonna be gone.”

Elon Musk says his five bullet point email was interpreted “as a performance review, but actually it was a pulse check review.”

The Trump administration has directed federal agencies to submit a reorganization plan by March 13 to prepare for mass layoffs, according to a memo released on Wednesday, Fox News reported.

The memo, published by the federal HR agency known as the Office of Personnel Management, is part of a broader push by Republican President Donald Trump and billionaire advisor Elon Musk to shrink the federal workforce and slash the federal budget.

Eli Lilly plans to spend at least $27 billion to build four new manufacturing plants in the U.S., the drugmaker said at a Washington press conference on Wednesday, as it grapples with the threat of drug import duties from the Trump administration.

The new plants will be built over the next five years, and are expected to create more than 3,000 jobs for skilled workers like engineers and scientists as well as 10,000 construction jobs, the company said.

Lilly said it will announce the locations of the sites later this year.

The announcement comes less than a week after U.S. President Donald Trump met with chief executives from major drugmakers, including Lilly CEO David Ricks, to discuss industry concerns such as tariffs on drug imports.

U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said at the press conference that Lilly was doing “exactly what the President was hoping would happen.”

Ricks said he hoped the government would exempt medical supplies from potential tariffs and continue to pursue further tax reforms.

The editors of the three permanent wire services that cover the White House have released the following statement about the Trump administration’s limit on the number of wire services with access to the president.

The three permanent wires in the White House pool, The Associated Press, Bloomberg News and Reuters, have long worked to ensure that accurate, fair and timely information about the presidency is communicated to a broad audience of all political persuasions, both in the United States and globally. Much of the White House coverage people see in their local news outlets, wherever they are in the world, comes from the wires.

It is essential in a democracy for the public to have access to news about their government from an independent, free press. We believe that any steps by the government to limit the number of wire services with access to the President threatens that principle. It also harms the spread of reliable information to people, communities, businesses and global financial markets that heavily depend on our reporting.

Julie Pace, Executive Editor, The Associated Press

John Micklethwait, Editor-in-Chief, Bloomberg

Alessandra Galloni, Editor-in-Chief, Reuters

Fox News White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich condemned the White House on Tuesday after it announced that it was seizing power from the White House Correspondents’ Association and would now handpick news outlets that will be allowed to participate in the presidential press pool.

“This move does not give the power back to the people – it gives power to the White House. The WHCA is democratically elected by the full-time White House press corps,” Heinrich, who is a board member of the WHCA, tweeted.

Justin Baragona has the story.