In blow to Musk, agencies ignore “what did you do last week?” email – National & International News – MON 24Feb2025
In blow to Musk, Trump admin says agencies can ignore “what did you do last week?” email.
After tense week, Gaza ceasefire in peril.
In blow to Musk, Trump admin says agencies can ignore “what did you do last week?” email
Last week, the federal Office of Personnel Management sent an email to all federal employees what the subject line “what did you do last week?”. The email demanded that workers supply five bullet points describing what work objectives they had accomplished the previous week. Shortly before the email went out, Elon Musk, who leads the unofficial Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) posted on Twitter that “failure to respond [to the email] will be taken as a resignation”. The deadline to reply was Monday at 11:59 p.m. EST.
Today it was reported that DOGE would use an AI program to analyze the emails and determine whether or not an employee or their position was essential.
Unions representing federal workers amended an existing suit against DOGE to challenge the legality of the email and Musk’s threat. The unions were already suing over mass firings of federal workers on probationary status.
Agencies rebuff DOGE
This afternoon, OPM informed personnel managers at the agencies that they could decide how employees should respond, including the option of outright ignoring the email.
Despite Trump appearing to back Musk’s initiative, several federal agencies have already told their employees not to respond. This includes the Department of Justice, the Pentagon, FBI, The State Department, the Department of energy, and the Department of Homeland Security, all of which are led by Trump appointees.
This is the latest sign of a rift within the administration regarding DOGE. In the last several days, several polls have come out showing that Trump’s popularity has dipped into the negative since he came into office. DOGE consistently polls as one of the most unpopular aspects of the Trump administration.
After tense week, Gaza ceasefire in peril
Last week, some of the cracks in the now month-old ceasefire in Gaza became wider still. After Hamas returned the bodies of three hostages, Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, Ariel, four, and Kfir, 9 months, DNA testing revealed that the adult female remains were not Shiri Bibas but an unknown Palestinian woman. Israel claimed that Hamas was withholding her body, though Hamas would have nothing to gain by doing so. In fact, Hamas determined that her remains had become mixed with those of another woman and quickly located and handed over the correct remains.
Israel also announced, without providing evidence, that their forensic examination of the bodies of the two boys showed that they had been murdered with “bare hands” in Gaza. Hamas reported the Bibas family were killed in an IDF airstrike way back in November of 2023. If they had indeed been deceased for that amount of time, it is highly improbable that they would have been able to determine the cause and manner of death to any medical or legal certainty. In fact, a statement from the boys’ relatives indicates that they have received no such official information.
On the same day that these bodies were returned, several buses exploded at a terminal in Tel Aviv. There were no deaths or injuries. Israel has implied that Palestinian militant groups were responsible, and ordered an intensification of its destructive and deadly raids in the West Bank in response. However, the only people arrested in connection with the incident were two Israelis. The homemade explosive devices, including some that were unexploded, had Arabic writing on them, but with spelling and grammatical errors.
Israel delays prisoner release
On Saturday, Hamas released six of its hostages as promised, but Israel indefinitely delayed the release of 600 Palestinian prisoners, in direct violation of the ceasefire agreement. Hamas has said it will not release the next four hostage bodies due to be released in this phase of the ceasefire until the Palestinian prisoners are released.
Israel has said that they will only release the Palestinian prisoners if Hamas ceases holding ceremonies at each of its releases, which they have used for propaganda purposes.
Negotiations to move toward phase two of the ceasefire have also come to a halt. Israel was barely participating in those negotiations anyway and Hamas have also paused their participation pending the release of their prisoners.
Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu would prefer to restart Israel’s military onslaught in Gaza, as his far-right coalition partners have demanded. At his instruction, Israel’s negotiating team has inserted several poison pill demands to move forward to phase two, including a demand to disarm Hamas and its allies and expel all their members from Gaza.
Hamas has said publicly that they would happily step down from government in Gaza if there was a governing council in place. However, they will not disarm until there is a sovereign Palestinian state.
