A week after the Pentagon ordered employees not to respond to an email that originated from Elon Musk asking them to justify their employment, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced a change of course on Sunday.
Hegseth asked civilian DoD employees to reply to a weekend email – the second of its kind – from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) that demanded they each list five items they got done over the week.
“I am now directing each member of the department’s civilian federal workforce to provide 5 bullets of what they accomplished last week and comply with OPM’s email directive,” Hegseth said on X Sunday afternoon.
He also shared a video of himself offering a lengthy directive in which he said the initial email was to be ignored while the Pentagon reviewed whether replying to Musk and DOGE put classified information at risk.
“It’s a simple task, really, as Elon said,” Hegseth told employees while directing them to respond to the OPM message with a list of five accomplishments and to include their immediate supervisor on the message.
Hegseth said that replying to Musk’s email was crucial to ensuring that the DoD is not wasting resources while also being mission-ready.
Musk’s Saturday email read, “Please reply to this email with approx. 5 bullets describing what you accomplished last week and cc your manager.”
Employees were given until 11:59 p.m. ET Monday to respond.
When last week’s email went out, the Pentagon told its employees to ignore the Musk directive in the following message:
DoD personnel may have received an email from OPM requesting information. The Department of Defense is responsible for reviewing the performance of its personnel and it will conduct any review in accordance with its own procedures. When and if required, the Department will coordinate responses to the email you have received from OPM. For now, please pause any response to the OPM email titled “What did you do last week.”
Hegseth did not publicly tell employees to disregard Musk’s initial message. But it was shared by the official DOD Rapid Response account last week, which Hegseth had just endorsed:
