Fresh Musk emails to workers lead to renewed pushback at federal agencies
A new directive to workers ordering them to justify their employment weekly is still being met with resistance at the highest levels.
Protesters hold signs critical of President Donald Trump, Elon Musk and the U.S. DOGE Service as employees leave the former offices of the U.S. Agency for International Development in Washington with their personal effects on Friday. (Pete Kiehart/For The Washington Post)
Elon Musk is trying again on his demand that every federal worker justify their employment weekly. And again, the hastily executed initiative is sowing confusion and resistance throughout the workforce, with many agency heads openly defying it.
Late Friday and into Saturday, the second round of pushback had already begun at a handful of agencies. Some resistance came from officials at the very highest levels.
NASA acting administrator Janet Petro wrote Friday to staff warning them that “government-wide communications may reach you before we receive clear implementation guidance,” according to a copy of her message reviewed by The Washington Post. If workers receive another such communication over the weekend, they should temporarily ignore it, Petro wrote.
“Please give yourself a moment, and when you’re back on duty, check in with your supervisor or other agency leader before taking action,” Petro wrote. “Ultimately, we want to reduce your stress and provide clarity as we work through these requests together.”
The State Department likewise sent a brief note early Saturday telling staff to do nothing with the email. “Department leadership will continue to respond on the behalf of our workforce,” read a message obtained by The Post and sent at 7:35 a.m., signed by Tibor P. Nagy, undersecretary for management at State.
The billionaire’s threat last weekend was scuttled by agency leadership amid concerns over the legality of the directive, worries that classified and otherwise sensitive government operations would be compromised by it and fears that it would alienate mission-critical employees needed to implement an aggressive Trump policy agenda.
Musk, however, is doubling down on his effort, addressing what employees doing classified work can say.
“The President has made it clear that this is mandatory for the executive branch,” Musk wrote on X on Saturday morning. “Anyone working on classified or other sensitive matters is still required to respond if they receive the email, but can simply reply that their work is sensitive.”
The post invoked Trump’s support days after Musk, who is not a Cabinet official but rather what’s called a special government employee, was invited by the president to detail his cost-cutting efforts during the first Cabinet meeting of his new term on Wednesday. Trump praised the billionaire during it, signaling support for the very measures that have rattled some of the agency heads at the table.
Even so, guidance telling workers to ignore the emails came from across the chain of command — from managers, supervisors or other department leaders who did not wait for instructions from agency heads.
At least one ambassador put out guidance on Friday night, hours before Nagy sent his note, telling staff not to respond, according to an email reviewed by The Post. Also on Friday, an official within one division of the Energy Department wrote to staff members telling them not to respond to any emails asking what they accomplished last week.
The department has not yet issued an all-agency response, according to several employees who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.
“This is a power struggle,” one Energy Department worker said, describing the latest flurry of emails and counter-emails. The last guidance on the DOGE emails that department officials received from their leadership, on Monday, instructs: “Per the Secretary’s guidance, please do not respond, if you have not already done so.” It also assures there will be no repercussions for ignoring the “bullet point” directive.
Employees at the department said their Trump-appointed leadership appears to be growing exhausted by the haphazard DOGE directives, as the confusion they are creating diverts workers’ attention and agency resources away from the task of implementing the president’s far-reaching orders to gut climate programs, cut clean energy subsidies and enable more fossil fuel production. The employees said the emails, arriving late Friday night and over the weekend, appear designed to rattle and demoralize workers.
“It does give off ‘psychological warfare’ vibes to send these when they know folks would be heading to bed, or cooking dinner, on weekends in particular,” one employee said.
The Trump administration had been planning to transfer the latest distribution of “bullet point” demands, and the collection of responses, to the agencies themselves. It is currently being run by the Office of Personnel Management, which legal experts say does not have authority over the millions of workers targeted.
But typo-ridden emails with the subject line “What did you do last week? Part II” once again came to workers at many agencies from the email address hr@opm.gov at the Office of Personnel Management. A plan to transfer the reporting by workers to a Microsoft Forms database had also not yet been executed.
On Friday, the Office of Personnel Management changed its guidance to federal workers for responding to the emails, which it had previously advised was voluntary. The new guidelines state “consequences for failure to provide the requested information will vary.”
After publication of this story, Energy Department employees reported receiving an email directive from Energy Secretary Chris Wright to comply with the bullet points request, sending a copy to a new email address: doeweeklyaccomplishments@doe.gov.