Musk of Confusion in the Air
In the immortal words of Emily Litella, "Never mind."
AP (“Key federal agencies refuse to comply with Musk’s latest demand in his cost-cutting crusade“):
Key U.S. agencies, including the FBI, State Department and the Pentagon, have instructed their employees not to comply with cost-cutting chief Elon Musk’s latest demand that federal workers explain what they accomplished last week — or risk losing their job.
The pushback from appointees of President Donald Trump marked a new level of chaos and confusion within the beleaguered federal workforce, just a month after Trump returned to the White House and quickly began fulfilling campaign promises to shrink the government.
Administration officials scrambled throughout the weekend to interpret Musk’s unusual mandate, which apparently has Trump’s backing despite some lawmakers arguing it is illegal and unions threatening to sue.
Some officials are resisting. Others are encouraging their workers to comply. At some agencies, there was conflicting guidance.
To the extent the “order” was serious, sending it through proper channels might have been more efficient. To the extent it was designed to sow fear, uncertainty, and doubt over a weekend, it couldn’t have been more efficient.
In yet another display of the shocking incompetence of Musk and “DOGE,” this stupid e-mail also went out to members of the judicial and legislative branches, whose members would not be hired or fired by anyone in the executive. Judges with lifetime tenure got this turd in their email inboxes. A close friend of mine who works for the Architect of the Capitol, a legislative branch organization, got it as well. It’s just mind-blowingly idiotic.
The way to respond to Musk’s email would be to reply by summarizing the duties that are defined in the position’s job description.
Somewhat off the specific topic, but germain, Musk’s black MAGAt hat. An article last week proposed that this is part of an effort by Musk to cleave off a portion of the felon’s base as his own. Delusions of grandeur.
Given that Musk is operating under the general authority of the felon, who has, to this point, either given prior or retrospective authorization to Musk’s actions. That various felon’s appointees are resisting could be an indicator that cracks are appearing in the administration.
Monday 07:45 Arrived at workplace to start 08:00 shift
08:00 Led my section in prayer to Lord Jesus thanking him for President Trump
08:30 Led group discussion on implementation of President Trump’s thoughts
09:30 Expelled all non-white, non-male members of our section
10:30 Wrote reports on our section’s activities for Chairman Musk’s review
12:00 Received lunch (cheeseburger, Liberty fries, diet coke)
12:15 Examined genitalia and bucchal smears of staff to insure proper bathroom use
15:00 Sent genitalia findings to Chairman Musk’s for his review
16:00 Led section in hymns of praise for King Trump
17:00 Left for home
@Slugger: Remarkably similar to a typical work day here in the San Francisco Bay Area.
This is just so ridiculous and insane. Musk needs to go, like yesterday.
I hope people just keep doing cut + paste like he did with his fork in the road email, and apparently this directive too.
This whole “terrify your employees so they jump like trained rats” is intentionally dehumanizing.
Is it time for everyone to just start ignoring Musk? Maybe with a condescending smirk and a pat on the head?
@Sleeping Dog:
Honestly I think that’s good for the rest of us non-Trumpists. It seems kinda weird that the glue that keeps his whole movement together is his deranged laziness. People like Patel know that if they kiss his ass and do the weird shit he wants, when he wants, they can do whatever the fuck they want, so long as they don’t outshine him.
One of the other factions are people like Musk and Putin. People who have enough money and power that they put a little bit of fear into him. People Trump suspects are near equals. Not consciously. Like the specter of his dad. Just kinda haunting him. If they do generally what he wants he’ll let them have some latitude.
The rest are just freaks and perverts that are basically an extension of Trump’s Id. There’s a lot of them and they get punished all the time and generally come back for more.
If Trump dies in the next 4 years all those factions are going to fight each other to the death to be king of the shit heap. I don’t think there is a truly competent one among them and if there is they can’t handle the actual spotlight. Think Thiel can? He’s a fucking vampire weirdo that wouldn’t last 5 minutes in front of the cameras before we went barking mad.
@reid:
No. We need to focus on them and point out that he’s a “dick” and a “weirdo” and that they are all a bunch of freaks. Keep tossing out the most bland, juvenile taunts and watch them blow their fucking lids. Hell, they got the FBI or is it Bove threatening congressional Dems for calling Musk a dick.
Taunt them into arresting Dem politicians. I don’t think they can do anything but take that bait. They start throwing Dems in jail and this place is gonna get restive. People need to wake the fuck up. This would help.
@Sleeping Dog:
Considering the size of the task of analyzing hundreds of thousands of essays and the size of Musk’s crew, I lean towards the “…sow fear, uncertainty, and doubt over a weekend” theory.
@reid: Ignoring is hard to distinguish from silence, and silence will be taken as consent.
@Beth is right, although I think it also has to be tempered with some more specific complaints — Trump ceding power to this man who is routinely violating laws about congressional appropriations (but worded in a manner to appeal to the semiliterate), and some white supremacist stuff (not Nazi, even though he really is a Nazi, since the word means nothing these days)
@Beth: @Gustopher: Yes, I don’t disagree with you. I think ignoring him (and Trump too, if it could somehow be arranged) would drive him crazy given the ego/power trip he’s on. Now that the seal has been broken, it might spread.
But yes, not silently. A lot of people, especially Democrats in Congress, need to loudly call out the stupidity and craziness.
@Mikey:
This stupidity and chaos is what happens when Trump’s ignorant, brainwashed supporters vote to replace qualified, experienced black, woman, and queer DEI hires with rapist buffoon Trump, drug-addled oligarch Musk, and their cabal of NEI hires (Nazi, Entitled, Incompetent).
Remember when we were told Trump II was going to be more capable and less inept than Trump I? Pfft!
It’s darkly comical how stupid all this is.
It seems OPM sent the emails without informing any of the cabinet heads. In every single instance I’ve seen, the guidance from agencies’ leadership is some version of: “Don’t comply with the email until we tell you to.”
#winning
I don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes, obviously, but it seems that Musk, as the de facto head of OPM, thinks he can just task individual employees and totally avoid the “chain of command” including cabinet secretaries! And they’ve all told their employees to not respond to the email, a big middle finger to Musk.
Since it seems that Trump is doing nothing to coordinate his own staff, who is going to win in this particular internal conflict? At some point, someone is going to have to be told to shut up and color.
But for those in DoD, a much bigger shoe is likely dropping tomorrow or Tuesday – notifications on which probationary employees are getting fired. In the little corner of the world I’m exposed to, most leaders have sought blanket or wide-ranging exceptions, while a couple have sought almost no exceptions. Guess which of those organizations has the lowest morale right now! “I’m sorry, but the Commander has not sought an exception for your position, so your employment will likely be terminated next week.”
@Andy:
A friend of mine that got fired said the morale part was particularly bad for her. Knowing that she was going to get shitcanned at any minute was awful for her.
That and being told that they wanted to protect her but there was nothing they could do to actually protect her.
@Andy:
A friend who works for a department of an agency has received instructions to comply from one level of authority, and told to wait for additional direction from another level of authority. It is a MESS.
Nephew’s significant other says he has already fired his probationary staff and his two best people left to take offers in private sector. What he is now worried about is whether they will expect his to do the same amount of work with half his staff gone. The apparent belief held by all MAGA people is that all govt workers are lazy so if they actually worked 50% of staff levels should suffice. Are they going to fire more people when the work isn’t getting done?
Steve
@steve: My .02 is that is the game plan for agencies, especially the IRS. Fire people, citizens get angry because things aren’t getting done, blame the agency for being bad, tell everyone we need to get rid of the agency.
I am so very angry.
This should end the farcical assertion that “If We Only Ran Gummint Like A Biznass” then everything would be magical.
Nope, most businesses are wildly stupid, inefficient, and fail.
@steve:
That’s the cover story. The actual belief is that eliminating a significant fraction of the already understaffed federal agency personnel will prevent the government from doing any of its jobs — which is the point. When no one is left to enforce the rules, there are no rules.
@Mikey: ” . . . [the email] also went out to members of the judicial and legislative branches, whose members would not be hired or fired by anyone in the executive. Judges with lifetime tenure got this turd in their email inboxes. A close friend of mine who works for the Architect of the Capitol, a legislative branch organization, got it as well.”
True – we do have 3 co-equal branches, in theory, and the President only leads the executive branch. But the judiciary has adopted a policy of trying to follow what the executive branch does, unless it is impracticable. (Think: pay raises, giving employees off for Christmas Eve, etc.). I don’t know about the legislative branch. And I don’t know how much of what the President (or Musk) have ordered has been deemed impracticable by the judiciary. But I suspect that violating the confidentiality of Chambers’ communications crosses that line.
Does it matter? Isn’t it likely the email was nothing but another act of official harassment encouraging public servants to quit jobs which must have become thoroughly dissatisfying and stressful? “You’re a worthless piece of shit. Acknowledge immediately or we’ll pretend you’ve resigned” seems deliberately designed to provoke a “Go to hell I’m out of here!” response.
@Beth:
So yes, Musk’s harassment of air traffic controllers and others in aviation safety is affecting their ability to do their jobs?
@DK: Elon Musk is going to have to learn the hard way that a) you can’t fire your way to sufficient air traffic control, and b) AI can’t solve everything.
As an air traffic controller I am hoping they tell us we have to comply with the email this afternoon and we get to shut down vast amounts of airspace while controllers are on the phone resetting their passwords and getting in line for the one or two computers available to them.
I check my government email maybe three times a year. And that’s probably generous for the average air traffic controller. We push tin, not emails.