On February 22, 2025, federal employees received an email from the Office of Personnel Management with the subject “What did you do last week?” It asked them to reply with about five bullet points on what they had accomplished. The same day Elon Musk wrote on X: “Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.”
The email itself did not say this. Leaders at several agencies, including the FBI, told staff to wait before replying. Later OPM told agencies that replying was voluntary and that not replying would “not equate to a resignation.”