Elon Musk is given a chainsaw as a gift by Argentine President Javier Millei during his appearance at CPAC, the annual Conservative Political Action Conference at the Gaylord Convention Center in Oxen Hill MD on February 20, 2025. Image: Carol Guzy/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock
By: FEDweek StaffUpdated: An email OPM sent to federal employees over the weekend essentially telling them to justify their employment has angered and frightened many recipients, along with causing confusion among them and even among employing agencies.
The email read in its entirety: “Please reply to this email with approx. 5 bullets of what you accomplished last week and cc your manager. Please do not send any classified information, links, or attachments. Deadline is this Monday at 11:59 pm EST.”
While the email did not specifically state that its origin was Elon Musk’s DOGE initiative, Musk had posted shortly before on X that “Consistent with President @realDonaldTrump’s instructions, all federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week. Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.”
Consistent with President @realDonaldTrump’s instructions, all federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week.
Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 22, 2025
While the email itself did not contain the threat in that last sentence, many employees read the email as such—especially given its similarity to an earlier email to agencies asking them to justify in a few words the continued employment of their employees in their probationary periods. Widescale layoffs of those employees continue to be underway, most recently with about 6,000 at the IRS and with the expectation of about the same number this week at DoD.
Demanding that employees recite their recent accomplishments is a common tactic in the tech industry and has been used by Musk himself in that context. However, it has not been the practice in the federal workplace and even some agencies—including, reportedly, State and intelligence agencies—initially cautioned their employees against responding at all.
Further, the email leaves open questions about the implications of not responding for employees who did not receive the email due to being on leave or other reasons, and whether agencies might move to fire employees for not responding on time, or not at all. Further, “resignation” by federal employees refers only to voluntary actions; otherwise, they are appealable through grievance channels or to the MSPB.
House Dems, Unions Mount a Response
On Monday, a group of 100 House Democrats called on all agencies to instruct their employees not to respond, saying the email and the social media post “unleashed chaos throughout the federal government leaving millions of public servants unclear how to respond and agency leaders scrambling to determine how to proceed. Various federal agencies, including the Department of State and National Security Agency, have already appropriately informed federal employees not to respond to the email.”
“Neither Musk’s tweet nor the email account for the fact that many federal workers will not be receiving this email in time to respond by the deadline as they may be away from their secure workstation, on medical leave, or away from their email for completely justifiable reasons. He also, disturbingly, appears to be unaware that many federal employees are locked out of their systems due to DOGE’s ongoing intrusion into federal information technology infrastructure,” they wrote.
“Finally, neither Musk nor OPM has explained to the public how OPM and the agencies would even review and process potentially two million responses from across the government—which are duplicative of existing performance management procedures—without diverting resources and costing the American people money and services,” they wrote.
In a letter to OPM, the AFGE union said that the email’s disclaimer about not sending classified information “does not provide sufficient guidance on what information employees should avoid disclosing. Federal employees have a duty to ensure that sensitive information, data, and records are only used and disclosed for authorized purposes.”
Federal employees report to their own agencies, not to OPM, it said, adding that AFGE has “received numerous reports from dedicated civil servants, including those who care for our veterans and safeguard our nation, expressing frustration over the email’s tone and intent. Rather than fostering professionalism and respect for their work, this hastily written email left many feeling undervalued and intimidated.”
The NFFE union meanwhile posted this: “NFFE believes this email and the threat by Elon Musk are illegal. We advise you to forward the email to your immediate supervisor and ask for their guidance. If your immediate supervisor does not give you instruction to reply, please wait to respond until further notice is given by your agency, your supervisor, or NFFE. If your immediate supervisor advises you to reply to the email, please do so.”
“OPM and Elon Musk do not have legal authority to take personnel action based on this request. This is yet another ploy by the Trump Administration and Elon Musk to create an atmosphere of intimidation and is not a legal manner to manage America’s largest workforce.”
Both unions said they would bring legal challenges against any firings or other disciplinary action related to non-response to the email.
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