How Elon Musk Will Unite the American Workforce

Do not underestimate the backlash to performative bullshit email requests.

Photo by Sigmund on Unsplash

As far back as November there were signs that Elon Musk was not a political asset to Donald Trump. This has become even more apparent as of late. According to Futurism’s Victor Tangemann:

A whopping 49 percent of respondents [in a new Washington Post-Ipsos poll] said they disapproved of the "job that Elon Musk is doing within the federal government," while only 34 approved. The degree of animosity shouldn't be understated either, with 41 percent "strongly" disapproving, while only eight percent "somewhat" disapproved.

When asked about Musk shutting down "federal government programs that he decides are unnecessary," 52 percent of all respondents disapproved, while only 26 percent approved.

And 63 percent of respondents said they were "concerned" about Musk's DOGE boys "getting access to some federal government databases that have Americans' personal Social Security, Medicare and tax information."

Previous polling painted a damning picture of the entrepreneur's popularity, showing that his public support, even among Trump supporters, is dropping precipitously. A The Economist and YouGov poll found earlier this month that a mere 25 percent of Trump voters said that Musk should have "a lot" of influence on the Trump administration — compared to 51 percent just days after the election….

A separate poll conducted by CNN, the results of which were released today, found that 54 percent of Americans said that "giving Elon Musk a prominent role in [Trump's] administration" was a "bad thing," while only 28 percent said it was a "good thing."

A Pew Research Center survey also corroborates that growing disillusionment, with just over half of US adults saying they have an "unfavorable view of Musk," 36 percent of whom have a "very unfavorable" opinion. Only 11 percent, tellingly, had a "very favorable" view of Musk.

You know just the thing for Musk to get back in everyone’s good graces? Acting like a coked-out Bill Lumbergh!

On Saturday Musk used the hr@opm.gov account to email everyone in the federal government with the subject line, “What did you do last week?” The main body said, “Please reply to this email with approx. 5 bullets of what you accomplished last week and cc your manager,” sent from The email helpfully added, “please do not send any classified information, links, or attachments.”

As astute readers might intuit, this email request prompted some amusing responses. Here’s my contribution:

My puerile response aside, this kind of query is one of the few things in this polarized political environment that will unite all workers — whether employed in the private-sector or public-sector — to roll their eyes. Musk’s request epitomizes a one-size fits-all theory of management. What if an employee has one important task that crowded out all other assignments? What if an employee is working with classified information? It is a fundamentally ridiculous request.

Furthermore, it will no doubt lead to an AI recursive hallucination. See, if I was a federal employee my response would be to use an AI app like ChatGPT or DeepSeek to complete this bullshit assignment — because this is exactly the kind of task for which LLMs excel. I am confident that Musk will also be using an AI to sift through the emails. Which means that, as per usual, Musk is extremely likely to be posting claims that are completely divorced from reality in the coming weeks.

Look, all workers need to be assessed, and it is not unreasonable to ask for self-evaluations on a regular basis. This kind of ad hoc request impulsively sent over the weekend, however, is a piss-poor way to conduct this exercise. It merely confirms the shoddiness of DOGE’s entire effort.¹

As proof, consider how Musk’s email has triggered some confusing mixed messaging from Trump’s political appointees. According to Politico’s Irie Sentner:

Elon Musk’s weekend threat to federal workers triggered panic and confusion Sunday as administration officials rushed to issue sometimes conflicting guidance, setting in motion a power struggle between Musk and agency heads appointed by President Donald Trump to lead the federal government.

The guidance varied by agency, with some leaders telling their employees to wait before complying with Musk’s demand that they justify their jobs in writing and others either staying silent or offering vague advice on how to handle the Musk missive.

It’s the latest episode of Musk’s “move fast and break things” philosophy clashing with the layers of rules and laws that fortify the bureaucracy he hopes to hobble. And it’s the first sign that even staunch Trump loyalists are beginning to flex their political muscle against Musk, an unelected “special government employee,” whose power stems primarily from his proximity to the president.….

And government workers, granted anonymity to speak candidly, told POLITICO the email — and the idea that their employment could be judged based on a handful of bullet points — was offensive. “This data call is such an oversimplification of our work; it’s insulting,” said one FDA official.

“If I answer this little pop quiz honestly, most of my listed activities would be cleaning up the mess caused by DOGE and the administration,” said a career staffer at the Energy Department.

The Washington Post’s Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff, Hannah Natanson, and Carol D. Leonnig catalog how Musk’s latest missive has created another fine mess. The complete lack of clarity from Trump appointees across the federal government about how to respond to the email is generating more confusion:

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 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, such as 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 that concluded that 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….

[The email] caused uncertainty — and ate up people’s time across the government. In the Air Force department, for example, some supervisors spent their Sundays phoning or texting each one of their subordinates to ensure they had seen both Musk’s email and later guidance saying not to reply to it, according to several employees who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.

The national security implications of mass compliance with Musk’s request are pretty disturbing, as the New York Times’ Chris Cameron and Maggie Haberman explain: “Although Mr. Musk’s original email told employees not to include classified material, current and former intelligence officials said that if an adversary gained access to thousands of unclassified accounts of intelligence officers’ work that it would be able to piece together sensitive details or learn about projects that were supposed to remain secret.”

So, to sum up: Musk’s request is unlikely to generate any useful information but has undeniably generated mass confusion within the federal government. It is an exemplar of inefficiency.

Trump and Musk are doubling down on their request despite Trump’s own political appointees issuing countermanding directives. The hard-working staff here at Drezner’s World, however, is reasonably confident that anyone who has had to engage in one of these exercises will recognize Musk’s request as performative bullshit — and further downgrade their opinion of the twit who sent it.

1. Also, it should go without saying that federal workers are already evaluated and assessed on a routine basis.