Federal workers on Feb. 23 sued the U.S. government over Elon Musk’s threatening workers with termination if they do not respond to a new, mass email instructing employees to list some tasks they’ve recently accomplished.
In an email titled “What did you do last week?” sent on Feb. 22, workers were told to reply with five bullet points listing what they accomplished over the past week.
OPM also did not provide notice that employees who fail to respond to the email have submitted a resignation, the groups said.
The lack of notice means the OPM has not complied with federal law, according to the suit.
The OPM and the U.S. Department of Justice, which represents agencies in court, did not immediately return requests for comment. OPM has not responded to the suit, a version of which was first lodged on Feb. 19.
The Administrative Procedure Act allows courts to declare unlawful and set aside agency actions that are determined to have been promulgated “without observance of procedure required by law.”
The groups are asking the federal court to not only declare the email unlawful but also enjoin defendants from terminating probationary employees, which they argue is also being done by the OPM in contravention of the authority Congress bestowed to each agency head to be responsible for managing his or her own employees.
The Trump administration, which has directed Musk and DOGE to work with agencies to cut costs and improve efficiency, has already fired thousands of workers, primarily those on probationary status. That includes workers who had been with the government for less than a year.
the OPM’s buyout program also garnered about 75,000 resignations, the White House has said.
Musk said on Sunday that a number of workers have already responded to the mass email, which gave a deadline of late Monday.
