Even Trump Cabinet pick-led agencies are tiring of Elon Musk's hack-and-slash tactics.
Several heads of federal agencies have instructed their staff to ignore a letter from the Office of Personnel Management asking them to justify their jobs. The letter — sent late Saturday and seemingly spearheaded by Musk and his quasi-governmental Department of Government Efficiency operation— asked federal employees to share a rundown of their work in the last week.
"Please reply to this email with approx. 5 bullets of what you accomplished last week and cc your manager,” the mass email asked, setting a deadline of Monday at midnight. “Please do not send any classified information, links, or attachments."
On X, Musk said that failure to respond to the email would be considered a resignation.
"Consistent with President [Donald Trump]’s instructions, all federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week,” he wrote. “Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation."
Several agency heads, including recently confirmed FBI director Kash Patel, waved off the Musk threat.
"The FBI, through the Office of the Director, is in charge of all of our review processes," Patel wrote in an email shared by NBC's Ken Dilanian. "For now, please pause any responses."
At the State Department, Acting Under Secretary for Management Tibor P. Nagy said performance reviews will remain in-house.
"No employee is obligated to report their activities outside of their Department chain of command," he wrote in an email.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the IRS, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Department of Energy have all instructed their employees to ignore the request for now, according to ABC News.
