As part of his acquisition of Twitter in 2022, Elon Musk called on the social media giant’s CEO to detail what he accomplished during the work week – years before he employed the same tactic on federal employees while serving in his capacity as chair of the Department of Government Efficiency under the Trump administration.
Musk roiled the federal workforce on Saturday when he posted to X that employees would need to list their accomplishments for the previous week or risk losing their jobs.
But this isn’t the first time Musk has used the tactic: He did the same amid his purchase of Twitter in 2022, before he overhauled the social media behemoth, including axing top brass.
“What did you get done this week,” Musk had texted former Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal in April 2022, months before he purchased Twitter and ultimately renamed it X.
Musk helped resurrect the text exchange over the weekend on X, when he responded to an account that shared a “how it started, how it’s going” post that showed a screenshot of Musk’s text to Agrawal, accompanied by a screen shot of a Musk X post on Saturday directed at federal employees.
“Consistent with President @realDonaldTrump’s instructions, all federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week,” Musk wrote on X on Saturday. “Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.”
“To be clear, the bar is very low here,” Musk wrote. “An email with some bullet points that make any sense at all is acceptable! Should take less than 5 mins to write.”
Some Democratic lawmakers, unions and activists have called for federal employees to buck the order, while a handful of government departments and agencies, such as the FBI and Department of Defense, told staff to hold off on responding to the email, as respective officials will handle auditing their own staffers.
“This is a good opportunity for mass civil disobedience. Musk has no authority to do this,” Illinois Democratic Rep. Sean Casten, for example, posted to X on Saturday evening. “Encourage all federal employees to report to work, prepare GFY letters and continue to demonstrate the public service and patriotism he lacks.” The acronym GFY is internet slang typically meaning “go f— yourself.”
“It takes a remarkable combination of arrogance and stupidity to think that this is the best use of time for our intelligence officers, VA workers, air traffic controllers, and everyone else we depend on to do their job well,” he continued.
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