Days after Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) Director Elon Musk demanded federal workers to send emails of daily tasks, sworn-in cabinet members told their teams to ignore it, USA Today reports.
The original email threatened workers with termination if they failed to comply; however, after several agencies said the email could be ignored, an updated email, sent on Feb. 24, now says responses are “voluntary.” Before that, 12 agencies, including Acting Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Darin Selnick, had already alerted their staff that they didn’t have to comply with Musk’s request simply because he was not 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,” Selnick wrote in a statement to his department staff.
“When and if required, 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.’”
The other agencies not complying are the Departments of Homeland Security, Commerce, State, Energy, the IRS, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the National Institutes of Health, Federal Emergency Management Agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the CDC, NASA, and the FBI.
According to the Associated Press, one of newly confirmed FBI Director Kash Patel’s first tasks was to tell his staff to ignore the email until further notice. “The FBI, through the Office of the Director, is in charge of all of our review processes
and will conduct reviews in accordance with FBI procedures,” Patel wrote.“When and if further information is required, we will coordinate the responses. For now, please pause any responses.”
The only agencies complying with the tech billionaire’s request are the Departments of Transportation and Treasury and independent agencies such as the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
Several lawmakers, both Democratic and Republican, are side-eying Musk’s email while President Donald Trump is praising it and mocking those who were victims of some of the mass federal layoffs. Experts like Republican strategist Susan Del Percio and professor and director of George Washington University’s School of Media and Public Affairs Peter Loge look at the back and forth between agencies and Musk as chaos just weeks into the new administration’s reign.
Del Percio feels the agencies don’t like Musk going over their heads.
“What agency head or company head wouldn’t be mad if someone came in and sent that kind of email without consulting them?”
Loge calls the defiance “one more crack.”
“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 continued.
There may be some truth in their thoughts, as acting general counsel Sean Keveney said he was “personally insulted” by the
request. “I’ll be candid with you. Having put in over 70 hours of work last week advancing the Administration’s priorities, I was personally insulted to receive the below email,” Keveney said.“I have received no assurances that there are appropriate protections in place to safeguard responses to this email.”
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