Home Democrats are urgent each main company head in Washington to reject the current demand from Elon Musk that federal staff should element their current work accomplishments or be fired.
Greater than 100 Democrats endorsed a Monday letter to the leaders of 24 federal companies characterizing Musk’s missive — and a subsequent memo from the Workplace of Personnel Administration (OPM) reinforcing it — as an unlawful transfer with out precedent or binding pressure.
They’re urging the company heads not solely to dismiss the order, however to state explicitly that no federal staff will likely be fired for noncompliance.
“Mr. Musk’s threat is reckless, cruel, unlawful, and unenforceable,” the Democrats wrote. “You must take immediate action to clarify that the federal employees at your agency are not obligated to respond to this ill-conceived email stunt and that nonresponse cannot constitute resignation.”
The letter, spearheaded by Rep. Gerry Connolly (Va.), the senior Democrat on the Home Oversight and Authorities Reform Committee, is simply the most recent spherical of pushback from public officers in response to Musk’s demand, which he posted Saturday on the X platform that he owns.
“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. “Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.”
Shortly afterwards, the OPM despatched an e-mail to lots of of 1000’s of federal staff reinforcing Musk’s risk.
“Please reply to this email with approx. 5 bullets of what you accomplished this week and cc your manager,” OPM stated on Saturday afternoon.
Federal staff have been informed they’ve till the tip of Monday to conform.
Quite a lot of federal companies, nonetheless, are already combating the order. And a few of them are headed by a few of the most high-profile of President Trump’s government officer picks, together with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, FBI Director Kash Patel and Tulsi Gabbard, the director of nationwide intelligence, all of whom have instructed workers below their jurisdiction to disregard the order — no less than for now.
Different companies, although, are siding with Musk and OPM, together with the Treasury Division, the place workers reportedly acquired discover Monday that they have to adjust to the reporting requirement.
Musk’s actions have been cheered by many conservatives, who’ve lengthy accused the federal authorities of being a breeding floor of sloth and incompetence, the place the nation’s ills originate.
Democrats have decidedly completely different views, noting that the nation’s core establishments can’t operate with out the employees who make them tick.
“Whether Mr. Musk understands it or not, America is a nation of laws, our government is a system of checks and balances, and federal agencies will not be reorganized by social media post,” Connolly and the Democrats wrote on Monday.
“This stunt is yet another example of the cruel and arbitrary chaos Mr. Musk inflicts on the American people by carelessly ‘taking a chainsaw’ to the people’s government and the dedicated public servants who keep it running.”
