A federal worker who complained about Elon Musk’s ‘what did you do?’ emails to MSNBC has been mocked online for describing them as a form of ‘harassment.’
Cathy, a federal worker in Haymarket, Virginia, spoke on the network’s Morning Joe segment that focused on voters in the state upset with Musk and DOGE’s worker cuts in their town hall.
She discussed with the outlet the emails, ominously titled ‘What did you do last week?’, Musk and the DOGE department sent out to federal workers asking for five accomplishments they achieved in the previous week.
It was made clear that those who failed to respond may be fired.
‘The email that came out wanting us to justify our jobs with five things we did last week was on Saturday night,’ she said.
‘And I was literally working on Saturday night to make up for all the distractions I’d had from the previous week, which came from the executive branch.’
‘So, I’m working trying to catch up on things and then I get that email on top of it. It’s very hard to keep your train of thought when you’re getting threatened and harassed like that.’
The video, however, garnered attention on X where users mocked her for saying the emails Musk sent out were ‘threatening’.
‘Wow lots of distractions in the workplace,’ one wrote. ‘Welcome to the real world.’
‘The horrors of working on Saturday to catch up from work you didn’t finish during the week,’ another sarcastically commented.
‘Lady, if you cannot handle a quick 10 minute reply as to what you did during the week, you should not be working for the government,’ one declared. ‘Unfortunately, you may not be able to handle any job that requires time management.’
‘”Threatened and harassed,” talk about entitlement.’
‘For 5 tasks? If this is what we have working at the federal level, I am totally ok with reducing its size,’ another said.
‘”I had to work a Saturday because I didn’t do s*** from Monday to Friday. I’m the victim!” one tweeter mockingly wrote.
Musk threatened to fire anyone who failed to respond the emails, and the president later said there are around one million staffers with their jobs on the line after refusing to reply.
Trump said earlier this week that his team was working to track down those who failed to respond by the deadline.
‘Maybe they’re going to be gone, maybe they’re not around, maybe they have other jobs, maybe they moved and they’re not where they’re supposed to be,’ Trump speculated. ‘A lot of things could have happened.’
‘Right now, we’re trying to find out who those people are that haven’t responded.’
But in general, Trump put those workers on notice and said that they are ‘on the bubble’ – a sports phrase the president is using as a euphemism for their jobs being on the line.
First-buddy Musk also expressed his fury with the ‘incompetence’ being shown by workers’ response – or lack thereof – to the emails, and added they will have a second chance to answer.
On Monday, Musk was backed by Trump for the email, saying there was ‘a lot of genius to it,’ even as more and more agencies told their employees to ignore them, and it was reported he would be using AI to judge the responses.
Musk took to X on Monday night to respond to a post angry with the ‘meltdown’ the civil service was having over the request.
The email landed in the inbox of 2.3 million federal workers on Saturday night giving a deadline of 11:59 p.m. on Monday to send five bullet points of what they did at work the week prior.
Musk made a post to X on Saturday noting that it would be taken as a resignation if anyone failed to reply.
He wrote: ‘The email request was utterly trivial, as the standard for passing the test was to type some words and press send! Yet so many failed even that inane test, urged on in some cases by their managers.’
Musk then wondered: ‘Have you ever witnessed such INCOMPETENCE and CONTEMPT for how YOUR TAXES are being spent?’
The X CEO added that their behavior ‘makes old Twitter look good. Didn’t think that was possible.’
He added: ‘Subject to the discretion of the President, they will be given another chance. Failure to respond a second time will result in termination.’
Earlier Monday, it was revealed Musk plans to use artificial intelligence to determine which federal workers to fire after they submit their responses.
It was said that the AI system will process the data to determine if what each employee is doing is ‘mission critical.’
No rubric for what the AI would exactly be looking for or if it would depend on a person’s specific function was cited.
The emails led to a lot of confusion among the government workforce, especially after some department bosses issued guidance to their employees not to respond to Musk’s email coming from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) HR email account.
Trump insisted on Wednesday that DOGE is being more ‘surgical’ when looking at the number of government employees to fire and which jobs to ultimately cut.
Additionally, he wants different agencies and department heads to begin taking over the job of DOGE and making these cutthroat decisions themselves.
He said that Environmental and Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin has already said he could likely cut 65 percent of the workforce at his department.
Musk, who attended the Cabinet meeting with Trump, told reporters that there is no specific number of jobs that he is looking to cut.
‘We wish to keep everyone who is doing a job that is essential and doing that job well,’ the Tesla and SpaceX boss said. ‘But if the job is not essential or they’re not doing the job well, they obviously should not be on the public payroll.’