A threatening email sent by Elon Musk to millions of federal employees on Saturday backfired after opponents of the billionaire began spamming his inbox.
In the email, Musk ordered government workers to respond with their weekly accomplishments by the end of Monday or face potential termination.
"Please reply to this email with approx. 5 bullets of what you accomplished last week and cc your manager," the email said. "Please do not send any classified information, links, or attachments. Deadline is this Monday at 11:59pmEST."
The email, sent from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), quickly proved controversial.
Numerous government agencies, including the FBI and the Department of Defense (DOD), called on their employees to ignore Musk's request outright.
"For now, please pause any response to the OPM email titled 'What did you do last week,'" the DOD said.
Yet the pushback to Musk's email didn't only come from inside the government. After screenshots of the email, including the email address hr@opm.gov, began circulating online, everyday Americans began to flood the inbox.
"So lots of federal employees seem to have received this ridiculous helicopter boss nanny email. Since OPM only has 2600 employees I assume AI will be reading these," one X user wrote. "So let's have fun! How about everyone in the US send an email to that address and tell Elon what you did last week!"
In many examples, users mimicked Musk when describing their faux accomplishments the week prior.
X user Jon Schwarz sent an email joking that he accomplished everything from using ketamine to ignoring his children.
Others were less satirical in their responses to Musk.
@taradublinerocks listed one of her accomplishments as making sure everyone knows Musk is "an unelected immigrant Nazy bureaucrat."
Similar jokes about ketamine, which Musk has been accused of abusing, abounded.
Now, searches for the email address "hr@opm.gov" are blocked on X.
Musk eventually responded to the negative attention his email was receiving by claiming that it was just a ruse to make sure government workers were checking their emails.
"The reason this matters is that a significant number of people who are supposed to be working for the government are doing so little work that they are not checking their email at all!" Musk alleged. "In some cases, we believe non-existent people or the identities of dead people are being used to collect paychecks. In other words, there is outright fraud."
As usual, Musk did not provide any evidence for his claims.
While President Donald Trump has not commented on the email, Musk was tasked by the commander-in-chief with slashing government spending as part of the Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE.
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