Elon Musk again leaves his fingerprints on official communication from the federal government. In an e -mail to the staff on Saturday afternoon, the Office of Personnel Management, which was stacked with Musk Loyalists, employees to send five list marks with details about what they achieved last week and CC their manager. “Not responding will be taken as a dismissal,” Musk wrote on X.
The move comes after President Trump has announced that he wants Musk to be more powerful. “Elon is doing great, but I would like to see him becoming more aggressive,” he wrote about Truth Social. “Don't forget that we have a country to save, but ultimately to make bigger than ever before. MAGA! “
“Will do, Mr. President!” Musk answered in a post on X.
The memo, which is strongly resembled a Musk memorandum that was sent to Twitter staff in June 2023, indicates that employees are not allowed to include classified information, links or appendices in their answers. WIRED has confirmed that employees of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Internal Revenue Service, National Institutes of Health and Federal Aviation Administration, who all act in classified information, received similar notifications. The deadline to answer is Monday at 11:59 PM Est.
“They prove that their only goal is not efficiency, but to dismantle democracy by traumatizing federal employees,” says a current federal employee who asked to remain anonymous because they are not authorized to speak publicly about their agency. “They see this as a video game where they are a level higher when they hurt or eliminate a federal employee.”
In recent weeks, the Trump government has dismissed thousands of probation employees who have been in the federal government for only one or two years. The cuts initially touched hundreds of people who work on nuclear safety, as well as veterans and employees of the Ministry of Agriculture who try to avert a bird flu pandemic. The so -called Ministry of Government Efficiency has also effectively frozen or tried to dismantle the United States Agency for International Development and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
It is not clear whether OpM has the authority to force federal employees if they do not respond to the E -mail. “I don't know that someone can legally judge right now, because the agencies that have to act as watchdogs are dismantled,” says Laurie Burgess, a lawyer who has represented a number of Twitter and SpaceX employees in labor conflicts. She noticed that she has things that are heard this spring before the National Labor Relations Board and has no confidence that the board will still exist through that deadline.
In January, OpM federal employees sent an e -mail with the subject line 'fork in the way', a peak of a note that Musk had sent to Twitter in November 2022. OpM told employees to return to the office five days a week and that the government will use people who are “reliable, loyal, reliable and who strive for excellence.” Those who did not want to comply received a postponed dismissal offer that the White House said that around 75,000 federal employees accept it.
