On February 22, 2025, Elon Musk said federal employees who failed to answer a request about their recent work would be treated as having resigned. The reported Office of Personnel Management (OPM) email did ask employees for a short account of the prior week’s work, but it did not include Musk’s resignation warning. Its deadline was Monday, February 24, at 11:59 p.m. Eastern.
What Musk said—and what the OPM email said
Musk wrote on X on February 22 that federal employees would soon receive an email asking what they had accomplished the previous week. He added: “Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.” The “48 hours” description refers approximately to the interval between his Saturday post and the email’s Monday-night deadline; it was not a separate deadline stated in the email.
The reported OPM message asked recipients: “Please reply to this email with approx. 5 bullets of what you accomplished last week and cc your manager.” It also instructed them not to send classified information, links, or attachments. The email’s stated deadline was Monday, February 24, 2025, at 11:59 p.m. Eastern. It did not say that failing to respond would count as resignation. NPR’s contemporaneous account reported both Musk’s post and the email’s instructions.
Why federal employees received different instructions
The request created confusion because agencies did not respond uniformly. The State Department said it would respond on behalf of the department and that employees were not obligated to report activities outside their department chain of command. Federal judiciary officials advised some recipients that the message had not come from the judiciary and suggested they take no action. Other agencies issued their own instructions. Reuters reported on the differing agency responses.
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OPM’s guidance also evolved. On Monday, the office told agency human-capital officials that each agency could decide how to handle the request. A later OPM memo described agency review of responses and nonresponses, with agency leadership deciding on any action. OPM spokesperson McLaurine Pinover said agencies would “determine any next steps.” The available reporting therefore does not support treating the email and Musk’s post as one clear, uniform government-wide directive. Reuters’ report on the evolving guidance describes the agency-level discretion.
What the legal and political responses establish
Congressional advocacy
A February 24, 2025 release from House Oversight Democrats described a letter urging agency heads to tell employees they were not required to respond and that nonresponse did not constitute resignation. That was the lawmakers’ advocacy position, not a court ruling. The committee members’ release sets out their request.
Legal commentary
Nicholas Bednar, an associate professor of law at the University of Minnesota Law School, argued in contemporaneous analysis for Just Security that resignation must be voluntary and discussed due-process procedures for agency removals. This is legal commentary, not a judicial decision. Bednar’s Just Security analysis explains that argument.
Litigation record
A later opinion in Grelle v. OPM recounts a lawsuit seeking to prevent the government from treating nonresponse to an OPM communication as voluntary resignation. The opinion’s procedural summary reports the plaintiff’s claims and allegations; it should not be read as a finding that those allegations were true or as establishing a final outcome. The opinion’s procedural history is the relevant record.
What is—and is not—known about the outcome
The contemporaneous accounts establish the request, its deadline, and the fact that agencies gave different instructions. They do not establish how many employees ultimately responded or provide a complete account of each agency’s final actions. The email’s wording, Musk’s separate post, agency instructions, OPM’s later guidance, legal advocacy, and court filings have distinct sources and status; none should be collapsed into a claim that every federal employee had one government-wide resignation rule.
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