The drama surrounding the Elon Musk-inspired demand that federal workers email the Office of Personnel Management a list of five accomplishments from the prior week continues. And it is starting to look more like a farce.
As you recall, last weekend, government employees received an email informing them that they were required to submit a list of tasks they had performed the previous week. Chaos ensued, with various agency and department heads instructing their employees not to respond.
We were told this had all been worked out before this week’s email, which sought essentially the same information. On Saturday, Musk posted on the platform he owns, stating, “The President has made it clear that this is mandatory for the executive branch.” But apparently, it is not. Media reports suggest that several agency heads are still instructing their workforce to disregard the directive.
Sure, Pete Hegseth is implementing it at the Pentagon, but several other department heads are either contradicting the directive or seem confused. Perhaps confusion is the point — since it is not entirely clear that anyone will read these emails or what purpose they will serve, other than as a pretext to fire more government workers.
In any event, in the spirit of the moment, here is my list…
