Several American government agencies, including the FBI and The State Department decided to ignore the order of the head of the US Department of Public Administration Efficiency (DOGE) and entrepreneur Elon Musk to provide reports on his work over the past week, The New York Times writes, citing sources and internal documents of the agencies. The newspaper also cites their official statements.
On February 22, Musk, under threat of dismissal, demanded that American civil servants report on the work done before midnight on Monday, February 24 (the time difference between Moscow and Washington is eight hours). The demand emails were sent out from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).
The Pentagon said that the agency is independently "responsible for evaluating the work of its staff and will conduct any inspection in accordance with its own procedures," employees were urged to refrain from responding to letters from OPM. Tulsi Gabbard, director of the National Intelligence Directorate, also recommended employees not to respond to the request, follows from her message to subordinates.
"Given the inherently sensitive and classified nature of our work, members of the intelligence community should not respond to an OPM email," Gabbard wrote.
The head of the FBI, Cash Patel, did the same, as well as officials responsible for personnel at the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security, various law enforcement agencies, etc.
The National Security Agency and some other intelligence agencies have warned employees that the response could lead to the unintended disclosure of classified work. Musk's letter instructed not to include classified data in the report.
The trade unions also reacted to Musk's initiative. Everett Kelly, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, called the letter from OPM "clearly illegal" and "thoughtless."
"By allowing the unelected and inadequate Elon Musk to dictate OPM's actions, you have demonstrated disrespect for the integrity of federal employees and their important work," he said in a letter to the leadership of the Office of personnel Management.
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