Elon Musk has warned that federal employees could be forced into ‘resignation’ if they don’t respond to a six-word demand, and NASA workers have received particular guidance on how they should respond.
The SpaceX founder and billionaire is leading Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and has been tasked with cutting federal spending.
And he’s most certainly been doing that, with cuts among diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) programs and foreign aid among those being axed.
DOGE itself claims its cost-cutting moves have saved the US public $55 billion in federal funds, although this figure is yet to be verified, as per ABC News.
South African-born tech billionaire Musk is helping Trump’s administration to slash federal spending (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
Anyway, Elon Musk’s most recent tactic came in the form of a seemingly innocuous e-mail asking employees about their week.
If ignored, though, it could see people lose their jobs, he warned.
What does the DOGE email say?
An email with the simple subject line: “What did you do last week?” should’ve hit federal worker’s inboxes today over the weekend.
In a post shared to Twitter, one person revealed the content of the email, sent from HR.
“Please reply to this email with approx. 5 bullets of what you accomplished last week and cc your manager,” it read.
“Please do not send any classified information, links, or attachments. Deadline is this Monday at 11:59pmEST.
The mass emails are going out to federal workers, with the subject line, “What did you do last week?” It asks workers to respond with 5 bullet points ‘of what you accomplished’
If you ask me, it looks like one of those dodgy phishing emails and I’d certainly be thinking twice about replying to it.
There’s no real indication it’s from DOGE, either.
Anyway, Musk took to social media on Saturday to forewarn employees.
He wrote: “Consistent with President @realDonaldTrump’s instructions, all federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week.
“Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.”
According to the BBC, the email landed in people’s inboxes following Trump’s appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), with emails obtained by CNN also showed they were marked as highly important, with Musk’s mention of resignation as a result of a non-response similarly not included.
How have NASA employees been asked to respond?
Bloomberg reports that managers at NASA’s Space Operations Mission group told employees to hold off responding to Musk until they could establish they were ‘in compliance’, adding that workers should ‘try to continue to enjoy your weekend’.
Another email to engineers at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston told them to ‘PAUSE on any response to the subject email’, adding they should ‘not disclose proprietary or pre-decisional information to unknown recipients without a need to know’.
Yesterday (February 23), a NASA spokesperson told Bloomberg ‘anticipating sending some guidance to our workforce tomorrow’.
NASA and SpaceX
NASA’s upcoming mission involves a SpaceX rocket (NASA Goddard)
Musk has sparked controversy not only by taking on the DOGE role, but because his space exploration company, SpaceX, has been awarded billions of dollars of federal funded contracts over the years by NASA.
As of February 13, Musk’s company had been awarded $57,460,047 from NASA – and that’s just so far this year.
The US’ Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS) shows one contract, issued on January 17, was valued at $18,874,069, while a second, signed off earlier this month on February 10, came in at $38,858,978.
In fact, SpaceX is NASA’s second-largest private provider, racking up contracts worth a total of $2.25 billion from the agency in the fiscal year of 2024, as per Statista.
So, the fact that NASA employees could be forced into resignation over an email Musk has been in charge of implementing, is pretty ironic.
This all comes as NASA launches its highly-anticipated PUNCH mission to examine the sun’s atmosphere
How soon Elon Musk wants to destroy the International Space Station as he unveils reason why
The International Space Station is set to retire in the not-too-distant future
Elon Musk’s plans to destroy the International Space Station (ISS) might happen sooner than you’d expected.
In 2024, Musk bagged a whopping $838 million NASA contract to destroy the research center.
The ISS has been in orbit for over two decades and is nearing the end of its operation lifespan.
With this in mind, NASA has hired SpaceX to dismantle the 925,000-pound structure.
As of June last year, engineers said the ISS was still structurally sound, but urged that plans need to be made about its eventual demise.
Unbelievable video demonstrating speed of the ISS is blowing people’s minds.
Credit: Airplane Mode/YouTube
0 seconds of 2 minutes, 22 secondsVolume 90%
Why is the ISS being destroyed?
In regards to why it’s being destroyed instead of simply being left in space, there are fears that the ISS could come crashing back down to Earth.
While the whole of the ISS wouldn’t survive re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere and would burn and break up, NASA says that it would also ‘vaporize into fragments of various sizes’, and it’s these fragments that could come hurtling down on populated places.
However, with the help of SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft, a more controlled re-entry will take place, with the capsule helping ensure that the fragments of the ISS crash into the South Pacific Ocean, instead of on towns and cities.
The International Space Station has been in orbit for over 20 years (NASA)
As it stands, the ISS is scheduled to retire in 2030.
NASA said in a release last year: “As the agency transitions to commercially owned space destinations closer to home, it is crucial to prepare for the safe and responsible deorbit of the International Space Station in a controlled manner after the end of its operational life in 2030.”
How soon does Elon Musk want to destroy the ISS?
While NASA outlined its timeline months ago, Musk has now suggested that it could be done sooner.
Giving an update on the plans, he wrote on Twitter yesterday (February 20): “It is time to begin preparations for deorbiting the @Space_Station.
“It has served its purpose. There is very little incremental utility. Let’s go to Mars.”
Elon Musk gave an update on SpaceX’s plans on deorbiting the ISS (Twitter/@elonmusk)
Someone went on to ask the Tesla CEO if this means that the ISS will be de-orbited before 2030, to which the multibillionaire replied: “The decision is up to the President, but my recommendation is as soon as possible. I recommend 2 years from now.”
Regarding why Musk wants it done sooner, as per his tweet, it’s believed that he wants America to focus its attention on landing on Mars – the planet that the tech mogul supposedly wants to die on.
During a recent joint Fox News interview with Donald Trump, he said: “[I’m going to Mars] at some point. They ask me, ‘Do you want to die on Mars?’ and I say, ‘Yes but not on impact’.”
I mean, it wouldn’t be worth the seven to ten month-long journey to the Red Planet to die immediately, would it?
