US Capitol Police clear federal workers, terminated by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), from Republican Senator from Alaska Lisa Murkowski's office in the Senate Hart Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, USA, 25 February 2025. Image: SHAWN THEW/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
By: FEDweek StaffThe period for federal employees to respond to an OPM email essentially telling them to justify their continued employment has ended, although not the confusion that marked those two days.
The email sent Saturday had told employees to provide by midnight Monday “approx. 5 bullets of what you accomplished last week and cc your manager.” The standard email did not explicitly threaten disciplinary action, but in a posting his X social media platform, DOGE project leader Elon Musk had said that “Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.”
While some federal employees took the email in stride as the type of status report they routinely are asked to provide, a large portion read it as intimidating and insulting. Questions also arose regarding employees on leave or who otherwise lacked immediate access to agency email systems, as well as regarding the potential security considerations of accounts of employee activities—even if following the email’s directive to not “send any classified information, links, or attachments.”
Employees and their unions also stressed that individual agencies, not OPM, are responsible for managing their workers and that under federal workplace law there is no such thing as a deemed resignation. Numerous agencies advised employees not to reply and in a conference call on Monday OPM reportedly told agencies that requiring a response or not was up to them.
The AFGE union called the episode “nothing but a cynical attempt to demean federal workers and terrorize them into quitting. To be clear, federal employees report to the agencies who employ them through established chains of command. They do not report to OPM, “DOGE,” and definitely not to Elon Musk,” it said.
On Tuesday, OPM said in a memo on chcoc.gov that agencies “may exclude personnel from this expectation at their discretion and should inform OPM of the categories of the employees excluded and reasons for exclusion.” However, that was said in the context of employees who were unable to respond by the deadline and did not explicitly address the general directive in the email.
The OPM memo added: “Agencies should consider whether the expectation for employees to submit activity and/or accomplishment bullets should be integrated into the agency’s Weekly Activity Report or future required organizational activity reporting in order provide an enterprise-wide view of workforce achievements and organizational trends.”
“Furthermore, agencies should consider any appropriate actions regarding employees who fail to respond to activity/accomplishment requests. It is agency leadership’s decision as to what actions are taken,” it said.
OPM followed that with a posting on X that “Giving five bullets on what you did last week is so easy that even the busy White House @PressSec found time to do it!”
Giving five bullets on what you did last week is so easy that even the busy White House @PressSec found time to do it! pic.twitter.com/4mcZ8BuBQ2
— U.S. Office of Personnel Management (@USOPM) February 25, 2025
And in a posting on X, Musk said the email was “basically a check to see if the employee had a pulse and was capable of replying to an email. This mess will get sorted out this week. Lot of people in for a rude awakening and strong dose of reality. They don’t get it yet, but they will.”
No LLM needed here. This was basically a check to see if the employee had a pulse and was capable of replying to an email.
This mess will get sorted out this week.
Lot of people in for a rude awakening and strong dose of reality. They don’t get it yet, but they will.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 24, 2025
Adding to that impression was a comment by President Trump on Monday that those who did not respond would be “sort of semi-fired”—another status that does not exist under federal employment law.
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See also,
Calculating Service Credit for Sick Leave At Retirement
FERS Supplement vs The 10% Pension Bonus
How Your FERS, Social Security and TSP Payments Get Taxed
Where Should I Put My TSP in Retirement
