Several Administration Officials Tell Workers Not to Reply to Musk Email

The Washington Post

15:08 JST, February 24, 2025

Elon Musk’s demand that all 2.3 million government workers justify their work prompted confusion and resistance on Sunday, as several government agency leaders told their staffs not to reply to a mass email requesting bullet-point summations of their accomplishments.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard instructed personnel in U.S. spy agencies not to respond, according to the text of an email she sent to the workforce on Sunday, citing the agencies’ sensitive and classified work. Defense Department employees were given similar instructions to not respond, as were FBI personnel and Department of Homeland Security employees.

The latest directives come as employees and leaders alike across the government were caught off guard by an email sent Saturday titled: “What did you do last week?”

It commanded federal employees to “reply to this email with approx. 5 bullets of what you accomplished last week and cc your manager,” according to a copy obtained by The Washington Post. It gave employees a deadline of 11:59 p.m. Eastern time Monday.

The email left many worried, others defiant and still others stunned. The resistance, which grew throughout the weekend, came even from some top administration officials selected by President Donald Trump.

Employees at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency were told definitively to reply – a few hours before DHS sent a note saying the opposite. In some parts of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, staffers received instructions to draft a response but not send it yet. At other agencies, like the Department of Health and Human Services, employees were first given one instruction only to be emailed later to pause and watch for more guidance Monday.

Raising the stakes, Musk warned in a post on X that any employee who failed to respond would be treated as having resigned. But the email sent to workers made no mention of that possible consequence, which lawyers said would be illegal.

Musk’s threat also appears to contradict an assessment released on Feb. 5 by the Office of Personnel Management which concluded any responses to government-wide emails must be “explicitly voluntary.” Yet the weekend email was sent by an address at OPM, which serves as human resources for the entire federal government – and has been largely taken over by Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service.

On Sunday, a Republican lawmaker questioned the viability of the directive.

“I don’t know how that’s necessarily feasible,” Rep. Michael Lawler (R-New York) said on ABC’s “This Week.” “Obviously, a lot of federal employees are under union contract.”

Many employees at certain agencies cannot disclose information about their work to third parties without explicit authorization, security experts noted. Some warned of security risks if all 2.3 million federal employees are forced to reply to one email server sharing their contact information, their manager’s contact information and details about the work they do.

Worries at intelligence agencies

Concerns ran especially deep among employees of the Defense Department, intelligence agencies and the military, according to messages and interviews with more than 300 federal employees.

“Even if people don’t send classified information, the aggregation of all this information in one place would become classified information, which is a national security violation,” warned one active duty military officer who, like others interviewed for this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. “The military cannot function without the DOD federal workforce. This is a national security issue to treat the workforce this way.”

At the Justice Department, managers were advised late Saturday evening that all employees should be prepared to submit responses to the email on Monday. But rank-and-file FBI employees and staff in at least three U.S. Attorney’s Offices across the country said Sunday that the last guidance they received from their direct managers was not to reply to the email before receiving further instructions.

In a bureau-wide communication Saturday evening, newly installed FBI Director Kash Patel said the FBI would “conduct reviews in accordance with FBI procedures.”

At the Secret Service, the OPM email prompted a flurry of texts and emails to supervisors among agents and officers about whether they were expected to reveal the sensitive and classified details of their job duties the previous week, according to two people familiar with the discussions, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal communication.

To prevent agents from having to describe classified tasks they perform to protect the president and other high-ranking officials, senior officials initially instructed their subordinate agents to send an example response, beginning with: “This week I accomplished: 100% of the tasks and duties required of me by my position description” and “100% of the work product that my manager and I have agreed to.”

The fifth and final bullet said: “I exceeded expectations in the delivery of the above.”

On online forums, many employees cheered the boilerplate language, before DHS told staff early Sunday evening no one should respond, including those in component offices like the Secret Service.

At the State Department, Tibor P. Nagy, acting undersecretary of state for management, said in a message obtained by The Post the department “will respond on behalf of the Department,” adding that “no employee is obligated to report their activities outside of their Department chain of command.”

Similar messages went out to employees at a division within the Air Force, the Defense Information Systems Agency and the National Science Foundation, where the chief management officer said in a note to employees the NSF did not receive advanced notice or guidance about the email.

Musk stands firm, as directive costs workers time

On Saturday night and throughout Sunday, Musk doubled down on the directive. On X, the social media platform he owns, he stated that the email was necessary to ferret out government employees who are “doing so little work that they are not checking their email.” He claimed, without evidence, that there were “non-existent people or the identities of dead people” pretending to be government workers. Many Republican lawmakers defended the message, arguing it would only take a few minutes to reply.

But it caused uncertainty – and ate up people’s time across the government. In the Air Force department, for example, some supervisors spent their Sundays phoning or texting each one of their subordinates to ensure they had seen both Musk’s email and later guidance saying not to reply to it, according to several employees who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.

The chaos extended beyond the executive branch. At the Library of Congress, which is part of the separate legislative branch, staff received an email Sunday afternoon saying the OPM note was not meant for them and they should not respond.

Some judges and judiciary staff, who are also not in the executive branch, also received the OPM email, according to a note obtained by The Post from the director’s office of the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts, which staffs the judiciary branch. The message said no action should be taken and that the office would contact OPM about the Musk email.

Other workers and agencies were unsure if the email was real, given its unorthodox timing.

“It is possible that this new message sent outside of normal business hours was sent in error and/or is a phishing attempt,” said an email to some staff from NOAA leadership. “Until such time as we can verify that the message that was received … is authentic, please do not respond.”

The email also prompted defiance from Democrats and angry workers exhausted by Musk’s efforts.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York) said in a statement Sunday that Democrats would block Musk in Congress and the courts.

“Elon Musk is traumatizing hardworking federal employees, their children and families,” Jeffries said. “He has no legal authority to make his latest demands.”

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) called the request “absurd” and defended government employees. “If Elon Musk truly wants to understand what federal workers accomplished over the past week, he should get to know each department and agency, and learn about the jobs he’s trying to cut.”

At least one staffer responded to the email with resistance. A worker with the U.S. Geological Survey forwarded the “What did you do last week?” email to his direct supervisors informing them he “categorically” refused to reply.

“There is no way that a team of people will read >2 million responses to this message,” the employee wrote. “Anyone who replies is likely to have their responses fed into some AI woodchipper and used for goodness knows what purpose, legal or illegal.”

He then urged his bosses to defend their employees and “push back on these efforts to harass and intimidate us. We are all watching to see whose side you are on.”

Leaders within a NASA directorate advertised the email as a chance to tout workers’ accomplishments, writing that employees should reply with speed, accuracy and detail.

“In just the next two weeks we have 4 launches and 2 lunar landings with missions that will expand our understanding of the first stages of the Universe,” the NASA email stated. “Every one of you play key roles in these momentous endeavors … and can supply many more than just 5 accomplishments in any given week to showcase our mission.”

But at almost the same time elsewhere within NASA, another group of employees received opposite instructions.

One director wrote, “I recognize there are many concerns already being elevated around the request [including] data that would be sent un-encrypted. … The agency is asking employees to take a pause and wait for additional communication and guidance.”

And on Sunday morning, the NASA directorate that had urged employees to reply walked that back. “Please go ahead and prepare your bullets but do not submit … until you receive further guidance,” a leader there wrote.