In a move potentially setting up a major fight within the federal apparatus, the Department of Defense (DOD) has told its civilian workforce to ignore Elon Musk, the billionaire head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in his demand that all federal civilian employees respond to an email from him and explain what they have accomplished.
The memo to civilian workers as the DOD came from acting undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness Darin S. Selnick, who told them to respond to the demand from Musk that came through the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) by saying that their department will review their work, not Musk and DOGE.
Elon, as background, announced in a post on X (formerly Twitter) that all civilian federal employees would be asked what they accomplished, and if they don’t respond then they will be considered to have resigned. He said, “Consistent with President @realDonaldTrump’s instructions, all federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week. Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.”
Later on, Elon noted that the email was meant simply to check who is either non-existent or so checked out from their job that they don’t see the email, writing, “To be clear, the bar is very low here. An email with some bullet points that make any sense at all is acceptable! Should take less than 5 mins to write.”
He later added, on that same point, “The reason this matters is that a significant 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! In some cases, we believe non-existent people or the identities of dead people are being used to collect paychecks. In other words, there is outright fraud.”
The email itself, which appears to have been sent out on Sunday, February 23, said, “Please reply to this email with approx. 5 bullets of what you accomplished last week and cc your manager. Please do not send any classified information, links, or attachments. Deadline is this Monday at 11:59pmEST.”
In any case, Mr. Selnick told civilian DOD personnel to refuse to respond to the email, saying, Fox News Digital reports, “DoD personnel may have received an email from OPM requesting information. 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.”
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Continuing, Mr. Selnick said that the DOD would deal with Elon and respond to him, writing, in the letter he sent out, “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.’”
Mario Nawfal, commenting on DOD refusal to comply with Elon’s demand, said, “Agency responses to DOGE’s “What did you do last week?” email show deep divisions: DOD and DHS order staff to ignore it: “Silliest thing in 40 years,” says Pentagon official. Both agencies say they’ll respond through chain of command. Social Security and HHS embrace it, directing workers to list “impactful, mission-critical accomplishments” by Monday deadline. Meanwhile, CDC and FDA employees told to wait for further guidance.” Elon, responding, said, “Anyone with the attitude of that Pentagon official needs to look for a new job.”
A spokesperson for OPM told Fox News Digital, “As part of the Trump Administration’s commitment to an efficient and accountable federal workforce, OPM is asking employees to provide a brief summary of what they did last week by the end of Monday, CC’ing their manager. Agencies will determine any next steps.”
Watch Musk comment on the massive amount of government fraud below: