Elon Kicks Over Hornets Nest [Details]
Elon Musk kicked over a hornet’s nest by requiring federal staff to write an email. He learned from his DOGE investigators that there seem to be employees on the payroll who are actually dead. Then, there are others who accomplish so little on the clock they might as well be dead. All Musk wanted to do was find out who at least bothers to check in with the office. It blew up in his face.
Write a simple email
It’s not that big of a deal to write a little email, Elon Musk insists. On Sunday, February 23, it’s being reported that Trump’s aggressive DOGE watchdog “is on a campaign to convince skeptics his plan for increasing federal productivity is a good idea.”
Social Media has been in an uproar all weekend. The FBI was especially upset.
The firestorm was ignited by a policy directive requiring all government employees to “write up a weekly email report on what they accomplished during the previous seven days or else resign.”
It shouldn’t be that big of a deal to anyone who does their job. The ones complaining the loudest are the ones in danger of losing their paycheck.
FBI Director Kash Patel was quick to tell his staff to ignore the directive until he can check into it. Other agency heads “have expressed disagreement with Musk’s directive.” Musk took it in stride and transparently shared his reasoning on X.
“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!”
Non-existent people
If that’s not bad enough, “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.”
Kash Patel informed FBI employees on Saturday to “disregard an email from the Office of Personnel Management that followed up on Musk’s directive by instructing workers to list ‘5 bullets of what you accomplished last week and CC your manager.‘”
Similar actions were taken at “the State Department, NOAA, and NSA.” Two of the largest unions representing federal workers, the American Federation of Government Employees and the National Treasury Employees Union, were quick to jump on the bandwagon. That’s pretty sad, Musk observes.
The email summary he’s asking for “should take under five minutes to write and include only a few bullet points.” That, he added, is a “very low” bar. “The passing grade is literally just ‘Can you send an email with words that make any sense at all?‘” Apparently too many federal officials are forced to answer that question “no.”
Federal bureaucrats can’t figure out what hit them. That new standard was released on social media Saturday afternoon. By Sunday, Musk had an update.
He already learned a lot from the ones who shot a reply email back in full compliance without question. “A large number of good responses have been received.” The ones who did “should be considered for promotion.“
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