Here’s your new reason for laughing at Elon Musk

In February, Elon Musk’s demand that federal workers submit via email their accomplishments that week—or risk getting fired—was met with swift backlash. Some Cabinet members reportedly encouraged workers to ignore it, and now new reporting suggests even the Office of Personnel Management didn’t see the threat as legitimate.

According to The Washington Post, top human resources officers across the government were briefed two days after Musk’s Feb. 22 directive went out. They were told his initiative was “voluntary,” and that skipping the email wouldn’t count as a resignation.

Even for those employees who did respond, OPM—essentially the federal government’s HR department—reportedly had no plans to do anything with their submissions.

In other words, nobody took Musk seriously then. And it looks like even fewer do now. His grip on President Donald Trump’s White House appears to be slipping.

Earlier this month, Axios reported that Trump blocked Musk from sitting in on a top-secret Pentagon briefing about U.S. military plans for China—realizing, apparently, how absurd it looked to have an unelected billionaire privy to national security intel. Before that, in March, some Cabinet officials were complaining that Musk had become increasingly difficult to work with, threatening to blow up his relationships inside the administration.

Now, with Musk’s “special government employee” status set to expire in May, Trump and his team seem a lot more comfortable sidelining him. Musk and Trump have both denied he’s leaving—but the writing’s on the wall.

Either way, Musk’s time in the government has been a disaster. 

The Post reported that agencies are stuck navigating an inconsistent and chaotic patchwork of policies about how—or whether—to enforce Musk’s email stunt. Some agencies ditched the requirement entirely. Others never enforced it to begin with. 

Even the workers who still have to send emails seem to treat it like a joke. One employee admitted to submitting responses in a foreign language, according to the Post. Another, in the Department of Housing and Urban Development, reportedly said they use ChatGPT. A Defense Department worker told the Post they just copy-paste the same few lines every week.

“I don’t know anyone who’s manually creating a new response each week,” they said.

All in all, Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency seems to have created a novel way for employees to waste time.

Meanwhile, Musk’s business empire isn’t doing much better. On Sunday, Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives publicly warned Musk to get out of Washington and focus on saving Tesla, where stock is tanking and buyers are turning away. Ives said the company is facing a “code red” moment ahead of its quarterly earnings report—and directly blamed Musk’s role in Trump’s administration for the fallout.

“Tesla has unfortunately become a political symbol globally of the Trump Administration/DOGE,” Ives wrote, adding the brand may suffer “15%-20% permanent demand destruction” because of the damage Musk has done.

Musk’s email was an early sign of the Trump administration’s incoherent approach to governance. 

Pushed out by DOGE just a few weeks into Trump’s second term, the email ordered every federal worker to send in five bullet points of their accomplishments each week. It instantly caused confusion, with many questioning whether Musk even had the authority to demand it.

The president initially defended the move, but the White House later clarified that it was up to Cabinet secretaries to decide whether no response meant someone could be punished.

Now, even that threat looks hollow. 

The Post reports that agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Institutes of Health have stopped requiring the emails altogether. And among the few agencies that still do, there’s no clear sense of what the responses are even for.

At this point, Trump, his Cabinet, and many federal employees aren’t taking Musk seriously. Maybe he should take the hint and exit the White House with whatever sliver of respect he’s still clinging to. Because it’s not much.

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