Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
This past weekend I had a front-row seat on the latest Elon Musk-driven insanity of screwing with federal workers. It seems that Musk decided, all on his own, to task three million federal workers to report their current work assignments directly to him. On a weekend. With no prior warning.
The good news is, various federal agency heads slapped Musk down. Hard. Which possibly portrays the wheels falling off Musk’s ability to destroy the federal government. And embarrassing Pres*dent Trump in the process. A double win!
The Start
This all started Saturday morning with a Trump “Truth Social” post on his official account. Reasons for this Saturday morning screed are known only in the mind(?) of the poster.
This apparently triggered Musk into more prodigious displays of affection for his captive president.
So, Musk plowed the road and posted on his own Twitter/X social media of news to come. Musk’s posting threatened job termination to federal workers who did not comply with an email Musk had not yet sent.
I first learned of all this late Saturday evening, when I checked news on my iPhone, as I normally do, before bed (yes, I am a news junkie). I caught several breaking stories that Elon Musk, as head of DODGE, had just sent out an email to all us federal workers. News media reported Musk was requiring us to provide five things we had done the previous week, or else get fired for non-response.
So I logged into my work computer to find this email:
From: HR hr@opm.gov
Sent: Saturday, February 22, 2025 5:44 PM
Subject: [Non-DoD Source] What did you do last week?
Importance: High
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 11:59pmEST.
Note that the email address “hr@opm.gov” is the email account Musk and DODGE created upon taking over the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) immediately after Trump moved back into the White House on January 20.
Union Involvement
I joined the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Union a few weeks ago (another story). Next checking on my personal email account, I found this email from my union:
From: Everett Kelley, AFGE National President (actionnews@union.afge.org)
To: ###########
Date: Saturday, February 22, 2025 at 09:09 PM ESTMany of you have already received, or will soon receive, an email from a U.S. Office of Personnel Management (“OPM”) email address hr@opm.gov titled
“What did you do last week?”
This email requests all federal employees to respond with approximately five bullet points detailing their work over the past week. No explanation has been provided regarding how this information will be used or why it is being requested. While a message on X from Elon Musk suggested that failure to respond would be considered a resignation, the OPM email itself does not contain this threat, and there is no known authority for Mr. Musk to make this claim.
AFGE strongly believes this email was sent illegitimately and that OPM lacks the authority to direct the assignment of work to agency employees in this manner. We will formally request thatOPM rescind the email and clarify under what authority it was issued. In the meantime, AFGE advises all federal employees to forward the email to their supervisor and seek guidance on whether and how to respond, including the type of information that can be disseminated to OPM.You may wish to use the following language in your email to your supervisor:Dear Supervisor,
I received the below email today from a sender that was not within the agency or in my chain of command. Please provide me guidance on whether I am required to respond, and if so, how I should respond, by the end of my tour of duty on Monday. Please make sure to inform me of the type of information I should include in my response. If I am required to respond I will. I will assume that I have no obligation to respond to the email unless instructed to do so.If directed by your supervisor to reply, you should comply with that directive consistent with any guidance provided by your agency. If your regular day off is Monday, substitute Sunday for Monday in the template above.
AFGE will provide further updates tomorrow for those who have not yet received a response from their supervisor. Subsequent guidance will address how those on official time may respond if required to do so by their agency.
In solidarity,
Everett Kelley
AFGE National President
After reading this, I went to bed. I later found this follow-up Musk Twitter/X post. Apparently, already on Saturday night Musk was feeling the heat from his email demand and termination threat.
The Next Day
Musk was apparently not feeling enough heat though, as just past midnight Sunday he made this Twitter/X post (with later follow-up commentary by other folks):
Which leads me to wonder why in the hell someone would be voluntarily awake past midnight for the sole purpose of writing stupid stuff on social media? Also, apparently, Musk’s criteria for granting promotions is how quickly people suck up to the boss responding to pointless weekend tasking?
My Sunday
Shortly after I woke up Sunday morning I became busy. I began texting with two of my federal worker colleagues and keeping track of news. One colleague was supposed to be off Monday and wondered if he had to come back to work for this. Since I’d already logged into my work computer, I continued to monitor email traffic. Early that afternoon I received this email:
From: USCG Office of Civilian Human Resources
Sent: Sunday, February 23, 2025 1:39 PM
Subject: OPM Email Subject: What Did You Do Last Week? – Initial GuidanceAll CG civilian employees should have received an email (example below) from OPM subject: What Did You Do Last Week? The email instructs employees to reply, copying their first level supervisors, providing approximately five bullets of what they accomplished last week.
Current Department guidance is that all DHS employees will respond to the email. We are seeking additional guidance from DHS Chief Human Capital Officer regarding the required reply, and employees should be prepared to respond once we receive that guidance. We will issue an ANCHR to the civilian workforce providing further instructions when they become available.
At this time, all supervisors of civilians are required to ensure each employee is aware of the requirement and prepared to respond from either their work or personal email accounts by the established deadline of 11:59 EST on Monday, 24 February 2025.
This email filtered down through various levels of organization until our local program manager signed off on it. Meanwhile, I was picking up from news media that a number of agencies were directing their employees to not respond to Musk’s demands.
Later that night I received this email with “further guidance:”
From: Office of the Under Secretary for Management
Sent: Sunday, February 23, 2025 5:02 PM
Subject: [Non-DoD Source] Email Notification from OPM Entitled, “What did you do last week?”DHS Seal and Signature
February 23, 2025
Team DHS,
You may have received a message this weekend from OPM requesting information. DHS management will respond on behalf of the Department and all of its component offices.
No reporting action from you is needed at this time. For now, please pause any responses outside of your DHS chain of command.Thank you,
R.D. Alles
Deputy Under Secretary for Management
It took from 5:02PM until after 10:00PM to filter through layers of bureaucracy to reach my lowly position.
The End
This morning I received this final email from my Program Manager. This seems to reflect a stake was driven through the heart of Musk’s “Tell Me What You Did Or Else You’re Fired!” demand to three million federal workers.
From: ###########
To: ###########
Subject: RE: OPM Email Subject: What Did You Do Last Week? / Monday”s Guidance
Date: Monday, February 24, 2025 7:21:39 AMTeam: good morning,
To clarify the latest about OPM’s email – here’s where we stand as of this morning, CG guidance is to INFORM and PREPARE to respond.
Latest from DHS is that they will respond on our behalf.
Based on that – no action is needed from us now.
Regards,
###########
From various news sources, and through personal contacts, I’ve learned most federal agencies all came down on the side of telling Musk to go piss off.
Commentary
I’ve picked up some interesting nuggets from various news sources and discussions with colleagues. One point was that several agencies considered Musk’s demand to be an “insider threat.” That is, a way of illegally penetrating an organization and gathering classified information, or gathering information that is sensitive to legal investigations. A number of agencies handling classified or legally sensitive information immediately shutdown employee responses for just this reason.
Another point made is that the “HR@OPM.GOV” server was designated as Government-Wide Email System (GWES). Government employees are legally not obligated to respond to any GWES emails and are under no obligation to share any information. This was called out in the OPM document, Privacy Impact Assessment for GWES , published February 5, 2025. There seems to me a conflict between “respond or get fired” and “no obligation to respond.”
My Questions
So I’m left asking; what did Musk plan to do with all this information? Assuming all three million federal workers (give or take, based upon recent firings) had responded, Musk would have had at least three million emails to sift through. As best as I can determine, Musk’s DODGE organization consists of only a few dozen people. Who did Musk expect would read all these emails? How did he plan on identifying who didn’t respond? What mechanism did he plan on using to fire non-respondents? What was his criteria for “good” responses, as opposed to “snarky” bullshit replies? If someone sent him a bullshit response, would that have been grounds for “non-compliance” and termination?
Did Musk really have a plan for all this? Or, is he such a fool that he never actually thought through what he was trying to accomplish? Hmmm…
Meanwhile, Musk, and in turn Trump, seems to have suffered a publicly humiliating defeat in their ability to destroy the machinery of our federal government. May we see more humiliating defeats to come.
Related Posts
An earlier version of this story was posted to my Daily Kos account as Musk Demands All Federal Workers Report Their Taskings To Him
Update, February 25, 2025: Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo lays out the fascinating backstory of the pushback on Musk. Seems there were major legal issues involved that DODGE did not want to challenge.
Updated: February 25, 2025, with different formatting of the timeline.
Be First to Comment