Federal agencies tell employees to just ignore Musk's latest 'order'
Sources: ABC ; Propublica ; The Hill
An off-the-cuff tweet on Saturday by Micromanager-in-Chief Elon Musk preceded a disturbing email by the Office of Personnel and Management (OPM), warning federal workers that they must now begin reporting back to the Office every week on “what did you get done” starting this February 24. "Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation,” says Musk.
Consistent with President @realDonaldTrump’s instructions, all federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 22, 2025
Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.
However, “Management across multiple agencies have begun informing their staff that they are waiting on further guidance and, in some cases, telling them to hold off replying, according to multiple sources,” (ABC).
Musk and Trump may think they can steamroll their fascist agenda without a hitch, but they’re in for a rude awakening. Every move they make to seize control is met with fierce resistance. A leaked memo from the newly appointed FBI Director, Kash Patel, proves it: he's telling staff to "pause any responses" to Musk’s email, signaling a growing pushback from within the very heart of the administration. This is just the beginning of a much bigger battle, and it’s clear that they won’t have an easy path forward.
Why this Matters
The United States is undergoing an administrative coup.
Nevertheless, “The fact that Musk's recent OPM letter does not reference resignation like on social media signifies that pressure and the legal system are working,” says Daniel Hunter, movement leader and co-founder of Choose Democracy. In other words, Musk does not have the authority to do this, he knows it, and so DOGE chose not to include mention of forced resignation in the formal email, representing a potential signal of reigning in DOGE. “This is the prime example of a win that has a huge impact but can easily go unnoticed.”
In a feat of investigative journalism, Propublica caught Russel Vought, Director of Office of Budget and Management and chief architect of Project 2025, on a hot mic last October relishing in the fact that federal workers will suffer under Trump 2.0.
“We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected. When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work, because they are increasingly viewed as the villains. We want their funding to be shut down … We want to put them in trauma.”
Advocates see the inflammatory rhetoric, mass terminations, and buy-out attempt for what it is: Gutting federal agencies to undermine their basic ability to function - setting the stage for privatization and leaving the country in the lurch for services and programs that Americans rely on to survive. But those “bureaucrats”-- and millions of other Americans like you– are fighting back to defend your country and communities.
