Federal workers don’t have to answer Elon Musk-prompted emails outlining what they did in their job last week, despite the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) figure’s announcement that failure to do so would amount to resignation, The Post has learned.
Officials at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) have notified human resource bosses across multiple agencies that responses to the emails — which were due at 11:59 p.m. ET Monday — were “voluntary,” according to a source familiar with the situation.
OPM also instructed multiple HR departments that failure to reply to the email did not mean automatic termination — despite the Tesla and Space X boss’ warning to the contrary.
After the email was blasted out on Saturday afternoon, Musk had written on X that “failure to respond will be taken as a resignation,” an ultimatum that was not mentioned in the weekend missive itself.
Multiple government agencies and departments had already instructed their employees not to reply to the email demanding a list of five bullet points detailing what they achieved in the previous five working days.
Those included the Department of Defense, Department of Health and Human Services, FBI, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and National Security Agency, which told workers to pause any responses to the Musk-directed email that OPM sent out.
Some of those departments expressed concerns about keeping national security-related activity under wraps, though the email had instructed employees not to include classified material.
The Trump administration is facing litigation from federal worker unions who have argued that OPM is not able to make personnel decisions outside of its own agency. Musk’s DOGE team has been partnering with OPM on its cost-cutting crusade.
Some of the lawsuits have accused the Trump administration of flouting standard procedures for terminating government workers.
President Trump had defended the Musk-directed effort hours before OPM’s new guidance circulated.
“I thought it was great because we have people that don’t show up to work and nobody even knows if they work for the government,” the president told reporters in the Oval Office Monday. “What he’s doing is saying ‘Are you actually working?’”
Critics, including some Democrats, have attempted to expose daylight between Trump and Musk, a strategy the president has taken note of and scoffed at.
Leading up to the “What you accomplished last week” email, Trump publicly encouraged Musk to get even “more aggressive” with his efforts to slash government bloat.
Amid the weekend firestorm following the emails going out, Trump posted a “SpongeBob SquarePants”-inspired meme mocking the outcry from federal employees over the tech tycoon’s demand.
Musk also suggested that government employees who replied early to the bullet-points email “should be considered for promotion.”
House Democrats had also bristled at Musk’s latest machination and penned a Monday letter to 24 agency and department heads Monday demanding they inform their workers that the Musk-directed email is “invalid.”
“To this day, despite repeated inquiries from Congress, we do not know Mr. Musk’s official status in government, we do not know what his financial conflicts of interest may be, and we do not know what — if any — control President Trump actually has over his actions,” they chided.
The world’s richest man has a history of dishing out similar sporadic emails at his private companies in the past, including one to X (nee Twitter) employees after his takeover of the company in 2022 demanding that they get “extremely hardcore” at work.
Trump is slated to hold his first cabinet meeting this Wednesday, which will give top administration officials a potential opportunity to voice any concerns about DOGE’s efficiency gambit.
