Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered all civilian Pentagon employees to respond to an Office of Personnel Management (OPM) email demanding to know what they accomplished the week prior.
Hegseth’s directive comes after Pentagon officials previously instructed Department of Defense employees not to respond to a Feb. 22 “What did you do last week?” email, spearheaded by DOGE chief Elon Musk, over apparent concerns that classified information would be shared.
“Following a review of Pentagon procedures and consultation with the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), I am directing each member of the Department’s civilian workforce to provide five bullets on what they accomplished in their specific jobs last week to their immediate supervisors,” read Hegseth’s latest guidance, released by the Pentagon on Monday.
“All DoD civilians will receive an email outlying the next steps to be taken to comply with this initiative,” the Defense secretary’s message continued. “These reports will be consolidated internally within the Department to comply with the OPM directive.”
A separate memo released by the Pentagon instructs DoD employees to exclude “classified or sensitive information” in their reply email.
The memo, dated Feb. 27, also notes that “non-compliance may lead to further review.”
Workers on leave or without access to email will have 48 hours to comply after regaining access, according to the Pentagon.
Hegseth’s directive comes as federal workers have begun to receive a second version of the Musk-ordered OPM email that sparked outrage among some government employees.
Musk has claimed that “failure to respond a second time will result in termination.”
The billionaire DOGE head previously threatened that an employee’s nonresponse to the Feb. 22 email would be taken as a resignation.
The email campaign is part of Musk’s efforts to slash government spending.
“It’s a simple task, really,” Hegseth said in a video posted on social media Sunday, echoing the SpaceX and Tesla founder’s remarks about the controversial email.
“As Elon said, as the president recognized in our first Cabinet meeting, just a pulse check — ‘Are you out there?’ — to DOD civilians,” the secretary of defense added.
More than 1 million federal workers responded to the initial DOGE-ordered email, the White House said last week.
