Federal employees were blindsided on Saturday, February 23, with an email giving them a little over 48 hours to reply to an email from HR@OPM.gov the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) directing employees to explain what they had accomplished the week before. Many questioned if it was genuine and authentic, and whether or not to reply.

“Consistent with President Trump’s instructions, all federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week,” posted Elon Musk, who is heading the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) on X. “Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.” OPM then said responding to the email was voluntary and not considered a resignation, giving agencies the authority to request a response or not.

The email spurred confusion, as some agency heads instructed employees not to respond, while others urged all of their employees to do so. Department of Defense employees were initially told to ignore the email. A week later, DOD shifted course and instructed its civilian workforce to respond. Secretary Hegseth released a video on X describing it as a “simple task” and an “are you there?” pulse check.

In a second mass email, OPM instructed federal employees to not send links, attachments or any classified or sensitive information. NBC News reported responses from feds to the email would be filtered through an Artificial Intelligence (AI) system to determine if an employee is essential to the operation of the agency.

Many expressed concerns about adversaries, hackers, or insider threats, even if employees respond to the email with “all my activities are sensitive.” They suggested the collection of a large data set could still generate activities, trends, priorities, and more, which could be used for nefarious purposes.