In February, Elon Musk’s demand that federal employees submit by way of e mail their accomplishments that week—or threat getting fired—was met with swift backlash. Some Cupboard members reportedly inspired employees to disregard it, and now new reporting suggests even the Workplace of Personnel Administration didn’t see the menace as professional.
Based on The Washington Put up, high human assets officers throughout the federal government had been briefed two days after Musk’s Feb. 22 directive went out. They had been informed his initiative was “voluntary,” and that skipping the e-mail wouldn’t depend as a resignation.
Even for these staff who did reply, OPM—basically the federal authorities’s HR division—reportedly had no plans to do something with their submissions.
In different phrases, no person took Musk severely then. And it appears like even fewer do now. His grip on President Donald Trump’s White Home seems to be slipping.
Earlier this month, Axios reported that Trump blocked Musk from sitting in on a top-secret Pentagon briefing about U.S. army plans for China—realizing, apparently, how absurd it regarded to have an unelected billionaire aware of nationwide safety intel. Earlier than that, in March, some Cupboard officers had been complaining that Musk had turn into more and more troublesome to work with, threatening to explode his relationships contained in the administration.
Now, with Musk’s “special government employee” standing set to run out in Could, Trump and his staff appear rather a lot extra comfy sidelining him. Musk and Trump have each denied he’s leaving—however the writing’s on the wall.
Both manner, Musk’s time within the authorities has been a catastrophe.
The Put up reported that companies are caught navigating an inconsistent and chaotic patchwork of insurance policies about how—or whether or not—to implement Musk’s e mail stunt. Some companies ditched the requirement completely. Others by no means enforced it to start with.
Even the employees who nonetheless must ship emails appear to deal with it like a joke. One worker admitted to submitting responses in a overseas language, in keeping with the Put up. One other, within the Division of Housing and City Growth, reportedly stated they use ChatGPT. A Protection Division employee informed the Put up they only copy-paste the identical few traces each week.
“I don’t know anyone who’s manually creating a new response each week,” they stated.
All in all, Musk’s so-called Division of Authorities Effectivity appears to have created a novel manner for workers to waste time.
In the meantime, Musk’s enterprise empire isn’t doing a lot better. On Sunday, Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives publicly warned Musk to get out of Washington and give attention to saving Tesla, the place inventory is tanking and patrons are turning away. Ives stated the corporate is dealing with a “code red” second forward of its quarterly earnings report—and straight blamed Musk’s function in Trump’s administration for the fallout.
“Tesla has unfortunately become a political symbol globally of the Trump Administration/DOGE,” Ives wrote, including the model could undergo “15%-20% permanent demand destruction” due to the injury Musk has finished.
Musk’s e mail was an early signal of the Trump administration’s incoherent method to governance.
Pushed out by DOGE just some weeks into Trump’s second time period, the e-mail ordered each federal employee to ship in 5 bullet factors of their accomplishments every week. It immediately brought on confusion, with many questioning whether or not Musk even had the authority to demand it.
The president initially defended the transfer, however the White Home later clarified that it was as much as Cupboard secretaries to determine whether or not no response meant somebody might be punished.
Now, even that menace appears hole.
The Put up stories that companies just like the Environmental Safety Company and the Nationwide Institutes of Well being have stopped requiring the emails altogether. And among the many few companies that also do, there’s no clear sense of what the responses are even for.
At this level, Trump, his Cupboard, and plenty of federal staff aren’t taking Musk severely. Possibly he ought to take the trace and exit the White Home with no matter sliver of respect he’s nonetheless clinging to. As a result of it’s not a lot.
