'The silliest thing I’ve seen in 40 years': 'Rift' grows between Musk and Trump appointees over email

Some leaders of government agencies told their employees over the weekend to disregard a request from Elon Musk that workers outline what they had done the previous week. The email was the latest step in an effort by Musk and President Donald Trump to purge the federal government of workers. Officials at the Pentagon, Federal Bureau of Investigation, State Department, Department of Homeland Security and Department of Energy told workers not to reply, CNN reported Sunday.

“A rift appeared to open Sunday between some of President Donald Trump’s agency heads and Elon Musk” write CNN’s Kevin Liptak, Tami Luhby and Natasha Bertrand. They later add: “The scramble to discern Trump and Musk’s exact intentions with the email added another layer of uncertainty to an already-rattled federal workforce. It seemed to set up a showdown between some agency heads — who were appointed by Trump himself, and who are all considered loyalists to his cause — and Musk, who has paid little mind to the strict chains of command that dictate life within the federal bureaucracy.”

“Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation,” Musk threatened on X.

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Kash Patel, Trump’s new FBI director, was one of the first leaders to tell workers not to respond.

“The FBI, through the Office of the Director, is in charge of all of our review processes and will conduct reviews in accordance with FBI procedures,” Patel wrote. “When and if further information is required, we will coordinate the responses. For now, please pause any responses.”

Darin Selnick, acting undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness at the DOD, wrote that these decisions were up to their own department.

“The Department of Defense is responsible for reviewing the performance of its personnel and will conduct any review in accordance with its own procedures,” he wrote Sunday. “When and if required, the department will coordinate responses to the email you have received from OPM. For now, please pause any response to the OPM email titled ‘What did you do last week.’”

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Multiple senior officials at the DOD said the email “thrust their weekend into chaos,” according to CNN.

“It is the silliest thing I’ve seen in 40 years and completely usurps the chain of command,” a senior official at the Department of Defense told CNN. “That might be done elsewhere, but in the DoD it’s not done.”

“Anyone with the attitude of that Pentagon official needs to look for a new job,” Musk wrote on X in response.

The Department of Homeland Security’s deputy undersecretary for management, R.D. Alles, wrote in an email that “DHS management will respond on behalf of the department and all of its component offices,” adding, “No reporting action from you is needed at this time. For now, please pause any responses outside of your DHS chain of command.”

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The acting undersecretary of management at the State Department sent a similar email: “The State Department will respond on behalf of the Department. No employee is obligated to report their activities outside their Department chain of command.”

The Trump administration has fired at least 20,000 federal employees, the Guardian reported Monday.