Workers are unsure whether to respond to the Office of Personnel Management‘s and company leaders ‘ requests that federal employees report what they did last year or lose their jobs, which is causing chaos and confusion.
Over the weekend, Musk, who is in charge of President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Performance, demanded that employees respond to their emails with information about their past week’s actions or lose their jobs. He created common confusion.
OPM informed company leaders on a visit on Monday evening that responding to the Musk email was then “voluntary” and that failing to respond would not be regarded as a withdrawal, according to a cause comfortable, who gave the interview privacy to discuss internal conversations.
Musk did this, saying that “failure to answer a next time will result in termination” and that people may be given “another opportunity” to answer.
OPM’s Monday evening order, which functions as the president’s HR department, relays a similar concept to a privacy impact assessment published Feb. 5 that said any bulk email sent from a government-wide email system had “explicitly” state engaged with the email may be voluntary.
Some organizations began distributing the message almost simultaneously. The Social Security Administration told personnel that “pursuant to updated OPM guidance, responses to the email from sender ‘ HR’ dated Saturday, February 22 are voluntary. Non responses are not considered a resignation”, according to an email provided to the Washington Examiner.  ,
The Department of Health and Human Services relayed a similar message saying there is no expectation for employees to respond, but warned if they do they should “assume that what]they ] write will be read by malign actors” and urged them to “tailor]their ] responses appropriately”.
Adding to the uncertainty, Trump, speaking from the Oval Office on Monday afternoon called Musk’s email demanding federal workers justify their jobs “ingenious” and even repeated Musk’s warning:” If you don’t answer, you’re sort of semi-fired or you’re fired”.
Trump claimed that agency executives who want to protect sensitive information made the only exceptions to Musk’s email.
” Only things such as perhaps Marco at State Department, where they have very confidential things, or the FBI where they’re working on confidential things. And they don’t mean that in any way combatively with Elon”, Trump said.  ,
They simply stated that some people you don’t want to hear from who were actually working last week are just saying that.
At the same time, leaders at the departments of Defense, State, Homeland Security, Justice, and Energy defied Musk and told their employees not to comply with the request.
Due to the Department’s work’s secrecy and the sensitive nature of its work, DOJ employees do not need to respond to the email from OPM, according to Assistant Attorney General for Administration Jolene Ann Lauria. No further action is required if you have already responded to this email, according to an email to the Washington Examiner. No employee is obligated to report their activities outside of their department chain of command, according to a top State Department official who sent an email to the workforce.
However, leaders at the departments of Treasury, Commerce, Transportation, Veterans Affairs, the General Services Administration, NASA, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Office of Management and Budget instructed their employees to comply with Musk’s request. You are instructed to respond to this message before the deadline, according to an email sent to Treasury employees, adding that” we anticipate that compliance will not be challenging or time-consuming.” In comparison, Department of Treasury employees were instructed to respond to the query, but only to respond to “your first-line supervisor at Commerce, you do not need to copy other recipients at this time”.
Other federal employees received contradictory instructions. For instance, a worker who works for an agency under the Department of Health and Human Services was given a message on Sunday morning telling them to respond, and later that day was told to ignore the message. Another federal worker claimed the initial message from OPM was unread and was treated as spam. He later claimed that he had no trouble writing the email, but that the frustration stems from the message’s tone and the “implication none of us work.”
The Department of Commerce’s own employee described the situation as “scrambling to address frustrations and inquiries from staff” and described the situation as “leaving agency leadership.”
A federal employee at the Department of Commerce, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, expressed frustration when you received an email from a source outside your organization telling you that you had written orders in such a bland and detached manner, leaving you feeling undervalued and unsupported. Employees are” truly anxious and have been battling fires” rather than” truly quietly doing our jobs.”
Everett Kelley, president of the AFGE Union, described the correspondence as” cruel and disrespectful.”
In a statement, he said,” It is cruel and disrespectful to hundreds of thousands of veterans who are wearing their second uniform in the civil service to be forced to justify their job duties to this out-of-touch, privileged, unelected billionaire who has never performed one hour of honest public service in his life.”
A recently amended lawsuit challenges Musk’s request for employees to provide a list of recent accomplishments or face forced “resignation.” After being filed by a group of unions representing federal employees against OPM and acting OPM director Charles Ezell on Wednesday, the new filing in San Francisco federal court was amended on Sunday.
” In the time it took these employees on taxpayer-funded salaries to file a frivolous lawsuit, they could have briefly recapped their accomplishments to their managers, as is common in the private sector, 100 times over”, said Anna Kelly, White House deputy press secretary. The Trump administration will continue to demand the high standards of excellence and dedication from government employees, as the American people demand.
The Cabinet’s top officials are responding to Musk’s request just before Trump’s first Cabinet meeting of his second term is scheduled for Wednesday at the White House. Even members of the president’s own party were able to retaliate against the email.
” I believe a lot of people were taken off guard by that email Musk sent this weekend,” Musk said. It’s insensitive and disrespectful to federal workers”, said a Senate GOP aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity.  ,
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Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) also vehemently criticized Musk’s actions as his Department of Government Efficiency attempts to reduce federal spending.
In a post on X, Murkowski wrote,” If Elon Musk truly wants to learn what federal employees have accomplished over the past week, he should get to know each department and agency and get to know the jobs he’s trying to cut.” The unheralded jobs that our public employees perform deserve to be treated with respect and dignity.
Christian Datoc contributed to this report.
