(Bloomberg) -- US federal workers received a second weekend email demanding that they outline their accomplishments of the previous week — but this time with a message saying that it would be an ongoing occurrence.
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The email, with the subject line “What did you do last week? Part II,” is inspired by billionaire presidential adviser Elon Musk, who has made similar demands of managers at his companies.
But the emails from the US Office of Personnel Management have prompted widespread anxiety and confusion among the 2.4 million civilian federal workers. Musk has threatened to fire those who don’t respond, but some cabinet secretaries and other agency leaders — the only ones with the legal authority to discipline their subordinates — have instructed their workers to disregard the emails.
The latest email started going out Friday night and was largely similar to the previous weekend’s missive, but with two differences. OPM said workers would be expected to complete the same task each week by Monday at 11:59 p.m. Washington time, and workers can opt out of providing detailed bullet points on their accomplishments if they certify that all of their activities are classified or sensitive.
President Donald Trump said Wednesday that about 1 million federal workers who did not respond to the first email are at risk of losing their jobs.
But guidance from OPM explicitly exempts most of those workers, including any employee who is on leave Monday, those without access to email, or employees exempted by their agency head. The departments of Defense, State and Homeland Security have all granted exemptions, as has the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
There may be other legal obstacles to firing employees who don’t respond. Among them: An OPM-conducted analysis of the implications of the Privacy Act for the new government-wide email system, from which the job-justifying emails are sent.
“The Employee Response Data is explicitly voluntary,” said the OPM privacy impact assessment dated Feb. 5. “The individual federal government employees can opt out simply by not responding to the email.”
OPM backtracked on that earlier conclusion Friday, however, removing the “voluntary” language. Instead, the agency advised, “Responses may be used to assist in making personnel decisions and to inform broader workplace initiatives.”