Tech billionaire Elon Musk said federal employees would either get a second chance to respond to an email asking for a summary of last week's performance, or else they would face fire.
“They will be given another opportunity to be subject to the president's discretion,” Musk wrote to X on Monday. : Monday at 59pm or face removal.
“If the second response fails, a termination occurs,” Musk added in his latest post.
This message appears to contradict recent guidance from the Human Resources Administration (OPM). This told the agency leader on Monday afternoon that employees' response to the initial email was not mandatory and that failing to do so would not be considered a resignation.
“This afternoon, OPM, during the OPM Chief Human Capital Officer Council meeting, notified the agency that it was voluntarily responding to the OPM email,” according to an email obtained by The Hill.
“OPM also made it clear that the response to the email was not equivalent to resignation,” the email read.
That OPM guidance originally came amidst the confusion surrounding an email sent to federal employees on Saturday afternoon with mask instructions, amidst the lawn war between agency leaders and musks. . The email requested a response by the end of Monday, saying that a failure to respond would be understood as a resignation.
However, some departments and agencies immediately followed up and instructed employees not to respond to emails.
In a message to staff on Saturday, FBI Director Kash Patel said: “If you need more information, I'll adjust the answer. Please pause the response for now.”
“The FBI is responsible for our review process through the director's office and will carry out reviews,” he added.
The Department of Homeland Security leadership has emailed more than 250,000 employees. Similarly, I told them not to respond to emails.
“DHS Management responds on behalf of the department and all its component offices,” the email said.
“At this point, no reporting action is required. For now, please pause any answers other than the command chain in the DHS chain.”
OPM was previously sued for creating a new email system and its data collection efforts. This is the process of enforcing a privacy assessment after the fact.
thatI'll say it in the documentationThe response to any email is “explicitly voluntary,” but similarly states that “individuals have a risk of not realizing that their response is voluntary.”
But President Trump defended the order against Musk employees on Monday.
“There were a lot of geniuses in sending it. We're trying to find out if people are working, so we send letters to people. “Tell me what you did last week.” If people don't respond, it's very possible that there are no such people or they're not working,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
Hill reached out to the White House to make clear.
