The Department of Defense (DOD) has instructed its civilian employees to disregard Elon Musk, the billionaire head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), who has demanded that all federal civilian employees reply to an email from him and provide an explanation of their accomplishments. This move could potentially lead to a major battle within the federal apparatus.
Acting Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Darin S. Selnick sent the memo to civilian employees as the DOD, instructing them to reply to Musk’s demand via the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) by stating that their department, not Musk and DOGE, would evaluate their work.
In a post on X (previously Twitter), Elon declared that all civilian federal employees would be asked what they accomplished and that they would be deemed to have resigned if they did not reply. “As directed by President @realDonaldTrump, all federal employees will soon receive an email asking them to understand what they completed last week,” he stated. Ignorance will be interpreted as resignation.
Elon later wrote, “To be clear, the bar is very low here,” clarifying that the email was intended only to verify who was either nonexistent or so busy with their work that they didn’t notice it. It’s okay to send an email with a few bullet points that make any sense! Writing should take less than five minutes.
“The reason this matters is that a major number of people who are supposed to be working for the government are doing so little work that they are not checking their email at all,” he added later on the same topic. In certain instances, we suspect that paychecks are being collected using the identities of deceased individuals or nonexistent individuals. Stated differently, there is blatant deception.
The email itself stated, “Please reply to this email with approximately five bullet points of what you accomplished last week and cc your manager,” and it seems to have been issued on Sunday, February 23. Kindly refrain from sending any attachments, links, or classified material. The deadline is 11:59 p.m. EST on Monday.
As reported by Fox News Digital, Mr. Selnick instructed civilian DOD staff to decline to reply to the email, stating that “DoD personnel may have received an email from OPM requesting information.” Reviewing the performance of its employees is the responsibility of the Department of Defense, which will follow its own protocols for any such reviews.
