Elon Musk tweeted on Saturday that federal employees would soon receive an email “requesting to understand what they accomplished last week.” According to the New York Times, this email from the Office of Personnel Management was sent to various federal agencies that afternoon, including the FBI and the State Department, with a deadline for responses set for 11:59 PM ET on Monday.
However, the email did not include a critical detail from Musk’s tweet, where he mentioned, “Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.” Many legal experts have expressed concerns, stating that this could be illegal. The Washington Post highlighted that experts believe it “may lead some recipients to violate federal laws,” with law professor Sam Bagenstos from the University of Michigan noting, “There is zero basis in the civil service system for this.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries stated on Sunday that “Elon Musk is traumatizing hardworking federal employees, their children, and families. He has no legal authority to impose his latest demands.”
This situation mirrors Musk’s previous actions after taking over Twitter, where he made requests for engineers to review their code and suggested that failing to reply to emails would be considered a resignation. In a series of tweets over the weekend, Musk—who may or may not lead the so-called “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE)—claimed, without providing evidence, to be targeting fraud and nonproductive employees.
Leaders from several departments, such as the FBI and State Department, reportedly advised their employees to wait for further instructions before responding. The Post noted that acting director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Bridget Bean, instructed staff to comply with the “valid request.”
Unions, including the American Federation of Government Employees and the National Treasury Employees Union, have advised their members “not to respond, at least for now or at all,” as reported by Axios. CNN reporter Pete Muntean shared that the National Air Traffic Controllers Association termed the email an unnecessary distraction for an already fragile system.
