odanny
Diamond Member
There is some seriously crazy shit going on in our democracy at the moment.
An unelected billionaire from South Africa is upending the lives of countless thousands of Americans, not only workers but their families, and is now forcing them to answer to him in an official capacity, as if he really is a supreme ruler, albeit one who is still accountable to the Emporer, who exercises the final say on everything.
At this rate, the abyss is doable.
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.
WaPo
An unelected billionaire from South Africa is upending the lives of countless thousands of Americans, not only workers but their families, and is now forcing them to answer to him in an official capacity, as if he really is a supreme ruler, albeit one who is still accountable to the Emporer, who exercises the final say on everything.
At this rate, the abyss is doable.
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.
WaPo
