Federal Workers Defy Elon Musk’s ‘What Did You Do’ Weekly Email Mandate

As Elon Musk’s influence in government wanes ahead of his expected departure in May, his controversial mandate requiring all federal workers to submit weekly emails detailing five accomplishments is collapsing under administrative confusion.

Musk’s DOGE has made many mistakes including accidentally cutting funding for the government’s Ebola response.

Initially announced in February with President Donald Trump’s backing as part of a broader campaign to slash federal bureaucracy, the directive warned that noncompliance would face termination. Musk called the emails an “accountability” measure to ensure staff even had a “pulse.”

But internal documents obtained by The Washington Post and interviews with dozens of federal employees reveal a different story. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) told agencies just days after the order that the emails were voluntary, and that it had no plans to use the responses in any meaningful way.

The lack of centralized guidance created a patchwork response. Some agencies, like the EPA and NIH, have since declared the mandate optional or canceled it altogether. Others, such as the Defense Department and SEC, continue to enforce it to varying degrees, with some departments institutionalizing the process into multi-layered reporting chains.

Musk’s approach mirrors practices at his private companies, where similar weekly email updates were used to inform management decisions, including layoffs.

One former employee at X, Christopher Stanley, reported that those emails were used to identify underperformers.