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<\/figure>\n\n\n\n\u201cFailure to respond a second time will result in termination,\u201d Musk added, in his latest post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The message appears to contradict recent guidance from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), which told agency leaders Monday afternoon that employee response to the initial email was not mandatory and that failure to do so would not be considered a resignation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis afternoon, OPM during a Chief Human Capital Officers Council meeting, informed agencies that employee responses to the OPM email is voluntarily,\u201d according to an email obtained by The Hill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOPM also clarified that a non-response to the email does not equate to a resignation,\u201d the email read.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That OPM guidance initially came amid a turf war between agency leaders and Musk and amid confusion surrounding the email, sent at Musk\u2019s direction, to federal employees on Saturday afternoon. That email demanded a response by the end of the day on Monday and said failure to respond would be understood as resignation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Several departments and agencies, however, quickly followed up and instructed employees not to respond to the email.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a message to staff Saturday, FBI Director Kash Patel said that \u201cwhen and if further information is required, we will coordinate the responses. For now, please pause any responses.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe FBI, through the Office of the Director, is in charge of our review processes and will conduct reviews,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Department of Homeland Security leadership sent an email to its more than 250,000 employees likewise directing them not to respond to the email.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cDHS management will respond on behalf of the Department and all its component offices,\u201d the email stated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNo reporting action from you is needed at this time. For now, please pause any responses outside your DHS chain of command.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
OPM was previously sued over the creation of a new email system and its data collection efforts, a process that forced it to do an after-the-fact privacy assessment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That document says that response to any email is \u201cexplicitly voluntary\u201d but it likewise states \u201cthere is a risk individuals will not realize their response is voluntary.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
President Trump, however, defended Musk\u2019s mandate to employees Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere was a lot of genius in sending it. We\u2019re trying to find out if people are working, and so we\u2019re sending a letter to people, \u2018Please tell us what you did last week.\u2019 If people don\u2019t respond, it\u2019s very possible that there is no such person or they\u2019re not working,\u201d Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tech billionaire Elon Musk said federal employees will get a second chance to respond to an email asking for a recap of their last week\u2019s accomplishments \u2014 or else face termination. \u201cSubject to the discretion of the President, they will be given another chance,\u201d Musk wrote on X on Monday, referring to federal employees who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":9874,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[3127,2603,3128],"class_list":["post-9873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","tag-email","tag-musk","tag-respond"],"yoast_head":"\n