New Email Instructs Federal Employees to Record Recent Achievements Weekly.
Musk claims that the emails aim to identify employees on the payroll who have passed away.
Federal employees began receiving emails on Friday night requesting a weekly list of achievements. This message indicates that they are to submit such a list every Monday before 11:59 PM Eastern Time. According to reports, those involved in classified or sensitive activities were instructed to respond that “all my activities are sensitive.”
The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) reportedly sent the email to various agencies, including the FBI, the General Services Administration, and the Departments of Defense, Justice, Labor, and Agriculture. In at least one case, the message was sent from an internal address of a department.
It is unclear whether there will be consequences for those who do not respond to this new requirement or to other future emails. Following a similar email sent to federal workers last week, Musk made a comment on X stating that a lack of response would be considered a resignation, a point not included in the original message and which several legal experts have deemed illegal.
A federal judge ruled on Thursday that the OPM cannot fire employees from other agencies and ordered the revocation of guidelines that led to mass layoffs of probationary employees, many of whom held key positions. On the same day, Senator Alex Padilla (D-California) published an open letter urging Musk and the OPM to cease sending emails to employees of legislative offices and agencies, who are not subject to personnel actions by the executive branch. Padilla argued that these messages are “wasting time and resources and potentially misguiding employees to respond and share legislative information in an unauthorized manner.”
Many agencies warned their employees not to respond to last week’s email, while others instructed them to do so. Musk claimed without evidence that the original emails aimed to identify fraudulent employees and reiterated this claim at a cabinet meeting, suggesting there may be “a number of people on the government payroll who are dead.”
