Spokespeople for OPM didn’t reply to requests for remark. The New York Instances first reported the reversal.
DOGE’s movements have grow to be a political headache for Republicans, with polls indicating Musk and his efforts to intestine the federal government are unpopular, and constituents berating Republicans at the city corridor conferences, hard pushback in opposition to Musk.
“Elon Musk’s latest email fiasco is yet another example of the chaotic and callous treatment of federal employees that has been the hallmark of Trump’s second term,” said Everett Kelley of the American Federation of Government Employees.
Congressional Republicans are slowly but increasingly speaking out against Musk, with Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins applauding other Trump appointees for setting the rules for their agencies.
“I was glad to see some of the new department heads have pushed back against that,” the Maine Republican told HuffPost on Monday. “It should not be Elon Musk’s call.”
Other GOP senators have been critical of the project as a whole.
Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kansas), who chairs the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, has quietly been urging the Department of Veterans Affairs to reinstate hundreds of employees it haphazardly fired.
“Certainly on the veterans side, we’re asking for information from the administration,” Moran told Politico late last week. “We are being reassured that no one at the VA who has any direct care responsibilities are being terminated or laid off, and we’re just looking for the positions and circumstances in which it’s occurring.”
Trump praised the Musk initiative as “genius” on Monday, even as OPM reversed itself. “If you don’t answer, like, you’re sort of semi-fired or you’re fired,” Trump claimed at the White House. “Because a lot of people are not answering because they don’t even exist,” Trump said, baselessly suggesting there are nonexistent people in the roles of federal employees.
Some agencies said they didn’t plan to comply with the request at all. FBI Director Kash Patel told his workforce the FBI “is in charge of all of our review processes” and to “pause” their responses. The USDA told workers there’s no penalty for not responding. But the VA told workers they had to comply.
“I don’t think it was handled very well in terms of the surprise element of it or what the point of it was,” stated Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.).
Bloomberg by the use of Getty Photographs
No less than one federal company, the Division of Internal, continues to be making its tens of hundreds of staff post a listing in their weekly accomplishments — and telling them to arrange to do that probably each and every week.
This federal employee added, “It’s pretty much a full blown panic now in the office.”
An Internal Division spokesperson declined remark.
Kevin Robillard and Igor Bobic contributed reporting.
