DOGE sent an email using the Office of Personnel and Management (OPM) system to all federal employees on a Saturday night (February 22, 2025). It gave them until tonight (Monday, February 24, 2025) at midnight to respond.
Elon Musk added in a tweet, “Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.”
Musk and his allies are claiming this is a reasonable inquiry. After all who in their job is not subject to performance review and an account of your work to your boss?
Of course, this is a ridiculous proposition on its face as DOGE does not have the staff to review ~2.4 million responses. This implies that the email request is for another reason.
NBC reports he intends to use AI to process such a large amount of data. With no forthcoming details though, it raises yet another conflict of interest concern for Musk who is heavily invested in AI.
Alternatively, Musk himself suggested in a tweet that it is a “very basic pulse check”.
In another tweet, “The reason this matters is that a significant number of people who are supposed to be working for the government are doing so little work that they are not checking their email at all! In some cases, we believe non-existent people or the identities of dead people are being used to collect paychecks. In other words, there is outright fraud.”
This is a line the President repeated later: “If you don’t answer, you’re sort of semi-fired, or you’re fired, because a lot of people are not answering because they don’t even exist.”
This assertion ignores and provides no contingency for employees on leave or travel with no work computer access.
Of course, the objection isn’t the difficulty of writing the email.
Seeing as how Musk is not in anyone’s chain of command (and the White House has claimed is not even an actual government employee in a court filing), nor is OPM in a majority of people’s chains, the authority to demand this at all is suspect. In fact, multiple agencies have directed their departments not to comply (see list below).
Finally, this whole ordeal could just be a sort of political loyalty and obedience test. Matt Walsh, a right-wing political commentator, advocates sycophancy to Musk and Trump.
“Fire any federal worker who didn’t answer the email. Fire any who complained publicly about the email. Fire any who complained privately about the email. Fire any who did anything but cheerfully and promptly answer it.”
Musk responded, “Subject to the discretion of the President, they will be given another chance. Failure to respond a second time will result in termination.”
Sources:
Trump Stands Behind Musk on Bullet Point Email
DOGE Will Use AI to Evaluate Responses
Partial list of departments directing noncompliance:
- Department of Defense (Darren Selnick, Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness)
- FBI (Kash Patel, Director of the FBI)
- Department of Justice (Assistant Attorney General for Administration Jolene Ann Lauria)
Partial list of departments explicitly directing compliance:
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