The latest stage in Elon Musk’s effort to purge the civil service came on Saturday afternoon with an email to federal workers asking: “What did you do last week?”
“Please reply to this email with approx. 5 bullets of what you accomplished last week and cc your manager,” the message from the US Office of Personnel Management read. “Please do not send any classified information, links, or attachments. Deadline is this Monday at 11:59pmEST.”
The message stoked fear throughout the civil service, as many smelled a trap set by a capricious overlord looking for excuses to fire them. And indeed, on X, Musk posted an ominous threat: “Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.”
Yet it also stoked a surprising amount of pushback from Trump appointees inside the administration itself. Newly confirmed FBI Director Kash Patel and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard sent messages to their employees telling them not to reply. So did officials at the departments of State, Defense, Homeland Security, and Health and Human Services. Several such messages emphasized that agency heads are responsible for employee review — meaning that Musk isn’t.
Amid a swirling backlash, Musk acted defensively at first, claiming his request was innocuous. “The bar is very low here. An email with some bullet points that make any sense at all is acceptable!” he posted. He added that the email was merely “a very basic pulse check,” claiming it was meant to suss out workers who “are not checking their email at all” or instances in which “non-existent people or the identities of dead people are being used to collect paychecks.”
Later on Monday, he fumed: “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.”
But also on Monday, the Office of Personnel Management sent new guidance to agencies that claimed: Answering that “what did you do last week” email is purely voluntary, and not answering is not equivalent to a resignation.
Trump urged Musk to get more aggressive
The bigger picture here is that though Musk has been speaking — and often acting — as if he were the federal government’s CEO (or at least its COO), many Trump appointees have been increasingly annoyed at his chaotic impact on their agencies.
A Washington Post story published Friday chronicled many of these complaints, from the lack of say many agencies were getting in who was being laid off (leading some to frantically attempt to rehire employees who were fired), to the cancellation of contracts for legally mandated functions, and much more.
Then, in a post Saturday morning, President Donald Trump sent a TruthSocial missive: “ELON IS DOING A GREAT JOB, BUT I WOULD LIKE TO SEE HIM GET MORE AGGRESSIVE.”
“Will do, Mr. President!” Musk responded on X. (Yes, we live in a country where our president posts on the social network he owns, and his top adviser answers on a separate social network the adviser owns.)
The “What did you do last week?” email, which repeated a tactic Musk used during his takeover of Twitter in 2022, soon followed.
But some resistance also followed, including from some surprising sources, like from Patel, the newly confirmed, unshakably Trump-loyal FBI director.
“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 a message to FBI employees. “When and if further information is required, we will coordinate the responses. For now, please pause any responses.”
Will other Trump appointees successfully stand up to Musk?
We don’t know what happened behind the scenes here — it’s possible Patel got permission from Trump or Musk to exempt the FBI. If not, though, this could be read as a shot across the bow from someone with unimpeachable Trumpworld credentials. The message: no one gets to run — or dismantle — the FBI except me.
I’ve been wondering whether confirmed Trump appointees would eventually push back against DOGE getting free rein in their agencies – something that prevents them from running their departments as they see fit.
For instance, Musk posted Sunday that “a large number of good responses have been received already” to the “last week” email: “These are the people who should be considered for promotion.” But is Musk truly the decider on who gets promoted in every agency? One would think Cabinet secretaries and agency heads would have something to say about that. But given that Musk is clearly acting with Trump’s blessing, many have been fearful to push back against his moves.
Standing up to Musk is also difficult because he appears to have gained control of key levers of power within the government — for instance, through his allies’ control of the Office of Personnel Management, he seems to be able to engineer layoffs of many federal workers while placing others on paid administrative leave.
And Musk claimed on Monday that he’d do more of that very soon. “Those who ignored President Trump’s executive order to return to work have now received over a month’s warning,” Musk posted. “Starting this week, those who still fail to return to office will be placed on administrative leave.”
Update, February 24 at 4:30 pm ET: This story was originally published at 3:55 pm ET on Monday. It has been updated to include OPM’s latest clarifications about the email.
