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OPM demanded weekly work reports from 2 million federal employees under DOGE direction; Musk threatened mass resignation for non-response

On February 22, 2025, the Office of Personnel Management sent a government-wide email to approximately 2 million federal employees directing them to submit five bullets summarizing their weekly work accomplishments and copy their managers, with a deadline of the following Monday at 11:59 PM ET. The email was sent at the direction of Elon Musk, a White House special government employee leading DOGE, who simultaneously posted on X that failure to respond would be taken as a resignation. OPM's own February 5 privacy impact assessment, published in response to ongoing litigation, had explicitly stated seven times that responses to government-wide emails are voluntary.

Jurisdiction
federal
Location
Washington, D.C.

Abuses documented

Actors

On February 22, 2025, the Office of Personnel Management sent a government-wide email to approximately 2 million federal executive-branch employees directing them to reply with "approx. 5 bullets of what you accomplished last week and cc your manager," with a deadline of Monday February 24 at 11:59 PM ET. The email was sent at the direction of Elon Musk, a special government employee serving as de facto director of the Department of Government Efficiency, who posted on X approximately two hours before the OPM email that "failure to respond will be taken as a resignation" — a threat not included in the official OPM communication.

OPM's own February 5 privacy impact assessment, published in response to a federal lawsuit challenging the government-wide email system, explicitly stated seven times that responses to mass emails are "voluntary" — including an acknowledgment that there is a risk "individuals will not realize their response is voluntary." The American Federation of Government Employees, the nation's largest federal employee union, stated the email "fails to identify any legal authority permitting OPM to demand the requested information" and that OPM's actions "conflict with laws delegating the authority for the management of federal employees to their respective agencies." The Departments of Defense and Homeland Security, and the FBI, directed their own employees to pause responding while they reviewed the situation, and OPM later confirmed responses were voluntary.

Why we recorded this

The separation of powers assigns management of the civil service to statutory frameworks Congress established. OPM, operating under direction of a special government employee without statutory authority over federal personnel policy, used the government-wide email system to demand work justification from roughly 2 million employees — directly contradicting OPM's own February 5 privacy guidance stating responses are voluntary. This archive records when executive officials deploy government infrastructure to coerce the civil service outside lawful authority.

Sources

  1. Musk's federal worker email sends agencies and workers into confusion — NPR primary accessed June 28, 2026
  2. What Just Happened: Musk-OPM Send Email to Federal Employees Asking for Five Accomplishments — Just Security secondary accessed June 28, 2026
  3. OPM sends 'What did you do last week?' email — Economic Policy Institute secondary accessed June 28, 2026

See also