DOGE denied: Trump admin tells workers replying to Musk demand 'voluntary'
WASHINGTON − The federal Office of Personnel Management notified workers they could ignore Elon Musk's latest DOGE directive, a reversal for the billionaire adviser to President Donald Trump who sought to remove workers who didn't reply.
The Department of Government Efficiency had sent a blast email Saturday to an estimated 2 million workers via the Office of Personnel Management with the subject line, "What did you do last week?" The email instructed all federal workers to share "approx. 5 bullets of what you accomplished."
"Failure to respond," Musk wrote in a post on X Saturday, "will be taken as a resignation."
The original email gave workers a deadline of midnight Monday to reply. But an updated email Monday said the response is "voluntary." More than a dozen agencies had already told employees they didn't have to respond because Musk, the world's wealthiest man, isn't their boss.
"The Department of Defense is responsible for reviewing the performance of its personnel and it will conduct any review in accordance with its own procedures," Darin Selnick, acting undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, said in a statement to department staff Sunday.
"When and if required," he said, "the Department will coordinate responses to the email you have received from OPM. For now, please pause any response to the OPM email titled ‘What did you do last week.’”
Which Trump agencies are ignoring Musk's email?
Other agencies issuing similar disregard orders, whose remits run from national security to public health, include:
- Department of Homeland Security
- Department of Commerce
- Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
- National Institutes of Health
- Internal Revenue Service
- Department of State
- Department of Energy
- Federal Emergency Management Agency
- National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
- FBI
- NASA
Who is complying with Musk's order?
The Transportation Department, the Treasury Department and independent agencies like the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission have told employees to answer Musk's message.
In a sign of DOGE imprecision, Musk's email also went to political appointees at the White House, two sources told Reuters.
It also was sent to federal judges and other employees of the court system, who make up a separate branch of government and don't answer to the President or the White House.
'A bone to pick with Musk'
In language almost verbatim to Selnick's message at the Defense Department, FBI director Kash Patel instructed bureau personnel to "pause any responses" to Musk's email, according to NBC.
Patel, a former Justice Department attorney and longtime Trump ally, is one of the latest presidential appointees to be confirmed by the Senate. While Patel is fiercely loyal to Trump, his message Saturday was a rebuke to Musk, who has had the ear of the president since the 2024 campaign.
Musk, a "special government employee" under Trump, has roiled the federal government with abrubt mass layoffs of thousands of workers − some of whom have been hurriedly recalled after DOGE staff realized the importance of their work.
Patel and others' messages may not signify a serious break between Musk and Trump appointees, said Republican strategist Susan Del Percio. But, she said, "all these agency heads have a bone to pick with Musk going over their head."
"What agency head or company head wouldn't be mad if someone came in and sent that kind of email out without consulting them?" Del Percio added.
DOGE struggles to prove results
Making good on campaign promises by Trump, Musk is making an unprecedented push to slash the size and spending of the federal government.
So far, though, Musk has struggled to provide evidence his measures are cutting the billions he promised. At one point, DOGE's website boasted its largest canceled federal contract worth $8 billion. In reality, it was worth $8 million.
And some workers initially laid off were days later reinstated, including veterinarians at the Department of Agriculture overseeing the national bird flu outbreak response.
"It's one more crack," professor and director of George Washington University's School of Media and Public Affairs Peter Loge said of the resistance to Musk's email.
"This is a bit of a rattling roller coaster of chaos, and the thing about rattling roller coasters is they don't tend to last very long," he added.
Trump backs Musk's move
Musk's online ultimatum following the email was particularly "stupid," Del Percio said.
"I think he could've gotten away with, 'Explain what you did in the last week.' There I think he could've gotten away with it," she said. "But talking about firing employees, I mean it's just stupid."
The president on Monday praised Musk's email, telling reporters in the Oval Office, "There was a lot of genius in sending it."
And, he said, the follow-up emails were "done in a friendly manner," to protect confidential work at the State Department or the FBI, for example.
"They don't mean that in any way combatively with Elon," Trump said.
Labor groups look to block Musk
A group of unions that was already fighting mass layoffs of government workers asked a federal judge on Sunday to block the email demand for workers to submit job accomplishments by midnight Monday to avoid a forced resignation.
The unions updated their lawsuit Sunday to argue that government agencies hadn’t published changes in regulations that would have allowed a lack of response to an email from OPM to be considered a “resignation” of federal employment.
“This request, and the resulting confusion, is not just inappropriate – it is disruptive to essential government functions,” Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said in a letter to OPM acting Director Charles Ezell.
U.S. District Judge William Alsup in northern California scheduled a hearing Thursday at 1:30 p.m. PST to hear arguments about the request to block the email demand for a description of workers’ accomplishments.
The government hadn’t formally replied to the lawsuit by noon Monday.
Contributing: Cybele Mayes-Osterman, Paste BN; Reuters