Federal workers filed a lawsuit on Monday against the Trump administration over an email sent at Elon Musk’s behest asking employees to list their accomplishments over the past week or risk losing their jobs.
The lawsuit, reviewed by The Associated Press, seeks to stop mass layoffs in the executive branch.
The updated lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in California and was provided to The Associated Press, is trying to block mass layoffs pursued by Musk and President Donald Trump, including any connected to the email distributed by the Office of Personnel Management on Saturday. The office, which functions as a human resources agency for the federal government, said employees needed to detail five things that they did last week by end of day on Monday.
“No OPM rule, regulation, policy, or program has ever, in United States history, purported to require all federal workers to submit reports to OPM,” said the amended complaint, which was filed on behalf of unions, businesses veterans, and conservation organizations represented by the group State Democracy Defenders Fund. It called the threat of mass firings “one of the most massive employment frauds in the history of this country.”
Musk, who’s leading the Republican president’s efforts to overhaul and downsize the federal government, continued to threaten federal workers on Monday morning even as confusion spread through the administration and some top officials told employees not to comply.
“Those who do not take this email seriously will soon be furthering their career elsewhere,” Musk posted on X, his social media platform.
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The email asked employees to respond with five bullet points detailing what they accomplished over the last week. Several federal agencies, including the FBI, the State Department, Homeland Security, and the Pentagon, instructed their employees not to respond to the email.
Director of National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard sent an email to workers telling them not to respond because of the “inherently sensitive and classified nature of our work.”
However, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) told its workers to comply with the demand.
Musk defended the request, arguing 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” and that “we believe non-existent people or the identities of dead people are being used to collect paychecks.”
The move appears to be motivated by President Donald Trump, who said he would like to see Musk’s DOGE initiative “GET MORE AGGRESSIVE” in making the government more efficient.
I don’t really see a problem with this request. But I can understand those arguing that it’s a bit ham-fisted. As Rep. John Curtis (R-UT) said during an interview, “If I could say one thing to Elon Musk, it’s like ‘Please put a dose of compassion in this’” and that “It’s a false narrative to say we have to cut and you have to be cruel to do it as well.”
Threatening someone’s job over an email might not be the most effective leadership strategy if Musk and his team want to get people on board with his initiative. Moreover, this should probably be left to the heads of federal agencies to determine how best to ascertain what their workers are accomplishing. It is also worth noting that there is no way DOGE will be able to comb through the tens of thousands of emails sent by federal employees.
However, the notion that such a move would require a lawsuit also seems silly. Yes, the approach was harsh, but how difficult is it to send a quick email listing five things one accomplished over the past seven days?
This is one of several lawsuits folks on the left have filed to stymie the DOGE agenda, so it seems likely that this is motivated more by politics than fairness.
Editor's Note: President Trump, Elon Musk, and DOGE are bringing much-needed accountability to our out-of-control government as they take a chainsaw to rampant waste, fraud, and abuse. Help us continue to report on DOGE's accomplishments and expose Big Government's corruption. Join Townhall VIP and use promo code FIGHT to get 60% off your membership.
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