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We have never, ever liked Elon Musk. It used to be that when we observed that he's a giant jerk, we'd get e-mails from readers telling us we were off base. We don't get those e-mails anymore.
As Musk and his Band of Bros try to get rid of as many federal employees as they can, they have shown both incompetence and callousness in nearly equal quantities. As readers will surely know by now, someone at DOGE (presumably Musk himself) sent out an e-mail over the weekend demanding that all federal employees make a list of five things they did last week, so that their ongoing value as employees could be evaluated. Those who did not respond were, ostensibly, at risk of immediate termination.
Let's start with the callous aspect of all of this. It's obvious, yes, but it is still worth saying (well, writing) out loud. The folks who work for the federal government, either as regular employees or as contractors, are, by and large, loyal and hardworking public servants who—in many cases—left money on the table by agreeing to work in the public sector. They have families, they have mortgages, they have lives, they are human beings. To make them jump through stupid, insulting hoops—like they are trained seals begging for a treat—is just reprehensible.
And the specific nature of the hoops makes it all the worse. To send the e-mail out over the weekend, when people are trying to de-stress and forget that they could be unemployed at any minute, is a jerk move. To propose that a person's value can easily be distilled down to a few bullet points is a jerk move. And the ultimate insult, in many ways, is this: There is no good way for Musk and his scummy underlings to actually read and process tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of e-mails. So, the plan is (or was?) to have them all be processed by AI. If there is a better way to dehumanize people, we cannot think of what it might be.
Now let's move on to the incompetence aspect, though by the time you read this, things may have moved forward several more steps. After Musk sent the first e-mail, quite a few high-ranking Trumpers told their underlings to ignore him. That includes some folks you might not expect, such as FBI Director Kash Patel and DNI Tulsi Gabbard. So, for a while, the "send us a bullet-point e-mail" command was in doubt (and that's before we get into the legality of the whole thing).
What happened next, quite obviously, is that Musk went running to Donald Trump to whine, and moan, and cry. And Trump sent a message from his very sad little social media platform in which he backed Musk, while Musk sent a second e-mail making clear that the bullet point demand was back on, and employees damn well better respond, or else they would be immediately terminated. Yesterday afternoon, Trump once again gave his support, saying that employees who did not follow Musk's orders would be "fired" or else "semi-fired." Nobody seems to know what it means to be "semi-fired."
So, did this mean that there was finally clarity? Not remotely. Just hours after Trump issued the "fired"/"semi-fired" warning, the Office of Personnel Management sent out a message declaring, in no uncertain terms, that responding to Musk's demands was optional, and that a non-response would not lead to termination. That's where things stood as of 2:00 a.m. PT on Tuesday; who knows what the situation will be by, say, 2:00 p.m. PT on Tuesday?
With that said, when it comes to this whole mess, there are a few things we think we do know. The first is that Musk, for all his wealth and success and bravado, is clearly in over his head. He keeps making embarrassing mistake after embarrassing mistake, wherein he shoots himself in the foot, over and over. And this is before any of the legal stuff can get off the ground, even though we all know a hailstorm of anti-DOGE lawsuits is coming. With Trump, way back in 2016 (campaign) or 2017 (commencement of his administration), we kept looking for the underlying plan, the logic, the chess moves. And it turns out those things weren't there. We are not inclined to make that mistake again with Musk. It is possible he is brilliant in other domains, but in this domain, he's lost.
Second, it's apparent that many of the other Trumpers have concluded that Musk is incompetent, or that he's a threat, or both, and they are preparing to defend their turf. Due to the kind of people Trump attracts and hires, and due to the fact that he is himself an incompetent manager, his first term was marked by all kinds of turf wars between various underlings, usually ending in someone being broomed. This time around, the turf wars are getting started much earlier and are developing much quicker.
Third, and we admit we're not sure about this one, but increasingly we are inclined toward the view that Trump is intimidated by Musk. Keep in mind that, when he's not punching down, and sometimes even when he is, Trump is pretty spineless. That's not meant as a personal attack, it's just the way he is. Famously, just to take one example, the fellow whose catchphrase is "You're Fired" could not actually bear to fire people when he ran the Trump Organization, and almost always foisted the dirty work off on someone else.
What we are suggesting here is that, even as Musk steps on every toe in Washington, Trump doesn't have the courage to rein him in. And because the South African does not occupy a formal position, there's no one else in the hierarchy above him. Will The Donald actually grow a pair and impose some discipline on Musk? And, if so, will it actually come from the President, or will he send someone like Stephen Miller to do it? These are good questions.
At very least, it will undoubtedly brighten some readers' days to know that Musk is coming in for a heaping helping of scorn. To start with, hackers managed to breach the computer that controls the TV monitors at HUD, and they put this video on all the screens, on loop:
It would seem we're not the only ones to take notice of the tone and tenor of the Trump-Musk relationship.
Meanwhile, the e-mail address that is being used for federal employees' "mandatory" responses is not a secret. It's hr@opm.gov. And so, those who wish to engage in a little resistance have been sending helpful bullet-point lists to DOGE. For example:
Dear Elon,
Here's what I did last week:Honestly I think I should be fired for this, but that's your call.
- got blitzed on ketamine
- ignored my children
- tweeted 1,782 times
- wore weird sunglasses inside
- got humiliated by astronauts
Or this one:
E-mail to President Musk
Subject: What I did last weekDo l get a diet coke and a Big Mac?
- I golfed
- I golfed
- I golfed
- I rode around the track at Daytona
- I followed Putin's orders
Love, Donny
Or this:
What I did last week:Bonus accomplishment in voluntary overtime:
- did not give you up
- did not let you down
- did not run around and desert you
- did not make you cry
- did not say goodbye
- did not tell a lie and hurt you
Now THAT is some ninja-level rickrolling.
Anyhow, if you know anyone who might like to participate in a little mockery of Musk, the e-mail address, once again, is hr@opm.gov. The more that inbox gets clogged with fake e-mails, the less useful it will be to the DOGE folks. (Z)